Episcopal Palace

Anyone arriving in Astorga along the Camino Francés comes across, beside the cathedral, a silhouette that looks as if it has strayed from the Loire Valley: cylindrical towers, spires, a moat and battlements. This is the Episcopal Palace, one of the few works Antoni Gaudí built outside Catalonia, and since 1962 the home of the Museum of the Ways, devoted to the pilgrimage route to Santiago. The architect himself conceived it as a castle on the outside and a church on the inside, and that dual nature is apparent the moment you cross the bridge over the moat.

The story begins with a fire: on 23 December 1886 the old medieval mansion burned down, probably built in the 12th century on a plot donated by Queen Urraca. Bishop Juan Bautista Grau, a fellow native of Reus, commissioned the new building from his friend Gaudí, who designed it from afar using photographs and drawings. The foundation stone was laid on 24 June 1889, but Grau's death in 1893 and disagreements with the cathedral chapter led to the architect's departure. 'Madam, I didn't leave, they threw me out,' he would confess years later to the Infanta Isabel. Ricardo García Guereta completed the work between 1907 and 1915, giving it a more conventional stamp.

It is well worth taking a slow walk around the building. The white granite from El Bierzo converses with the neighbouring cathedral; the portico with its three splayed arches recalls Catalan farmhouses, and the doorway is adorned with bishops' hats and tassels. Roses, the symbol of Reus, peep out from the balustrade, and Grau's coat of arms appears on the towers. The rear façade, with its small apses and stained-glass windows, gives away the chapel inside, and the angels that were meant to crown the roof ended up in the garden.

After serving as barracks and as Falange headquarters during the Civil War, the palace underwent a thorough restoration between 2014 and 2017. Since 2026, a life-size sculpture of Gaudí by León-born artist Amancio González has greeted visitors in the gardens to mark the centenary of his death.