Co-Cathedral of Santa María, Cáceres

Anyone exploring the monumental city of Cáceres will, sooner or later, end up in the Plaza de Santa María, and there awaits the building that gives the square its name. The Co-Cathedral of Santa María is the city's most important Christian church and one of the most recognisable symbols of a historic quarter that UNESCO declared a World Heritage Site in 1986. Seeing it is all but essential to understanding the character of this ensemble of stone.

What we see today was built mainly between the 15th and 16th centuries, in a late Gothic style that dominates the whole. But it pays to take your time, because the building holds layers of history both older and more recent. Some Romanesque features survive from an earlier church dating from the period when the town was reconquered in the 13th century, while certain Renaissance additions show that work carried on even as Gothic was giving way to new tastes.

Its origins are humbler than its present rank might suggest. In the Middle Ages it was one of the town's four parish churches, and it was not until 1957 that it was raised to the status of co-cathedral of the Diocese of Coria-Cáceres. Since then it has shared the episcopal see with Coria Cathedral, a curious arrangement that explains the prefix that so often catches visitors' attention.

Its heritage value was recognised very early on: the church has been listed as a Site of Cultural Interest (Bien de Interés Cultural) since 1931, decades before the historic ensemble surrounding it gained international recognition. That is why it deserves an unhurried visit, as a key stop on any stroll through the streets of the old town.