La Seu Vella

On the highest hill of Lleida, above the river Segre and the plain of western Catalonia, the Seu Vella, the Old Cathedral, rises with its octagonal bell tower like a fortress over the city. It stands within a walled military enclosure together with the remains of the Castle of La Suda, and from its open cloister the whole of Lleida and the surrounding farmland spread out below. It was the cathedral of the diocese from 1278 until 1707.

The hill had been sacred ground long before. A palaeo-Christian and Visigothic church stood here; after the Islamic conquest it was rebuilt as a mosque in 832, and when Ramon Berenguer IV of Barcelona and Ermengol VI of Urgell took the city in 1149 it was rededicated to the Virgin as Santa Maria Antiqua. In 1193 the cathedral chapter commissioned a new building from master Pere de Coma, and the first stone was laid in 1203 by King Peter II of Aragon and Count Ermengol VII of Urgell. Work continued through the reign of James I, and the church was consecrated on 31 October 1278. Its style sits between Romanesque and Gothic: a Latin-cross basilica with a nave and two aisles, five apses at the east end, carved portals and capitals, and wall paintings that partly survive. The Portal of the Apostles was begun in the 14th century and finished in the 15th, and the bell tower was completed in 1431. Some 60 m high and narrowing from 12.65 m across at its base to 9.62 m at the top, it has 238 steps; a bell named Mònica marks the quarters and another, Silvestra, strikes the hours.

The most unusual feature is the cloister, which stands in front of the church's main entrance rather than beside it. Completed in the 14th century, it is among the largest in Europe, and one of its galleries is open, so that its Gothic tracery frames views across the city instead of an inner garden. Its seventeen large windows each have a different design, one with a palm-tree pattern of Islamic inspiration, another combining a six-pointed star with a cross. After Philip V's troops took Lleida in 1707 during the War of the Spanish Succession, the cathedral was turned into a barracks, and the title of cathedral later passed to the New Cathedral, the Seu Nova; the old building was declared a national monument in 1918. Lleida, the ancient Ilerda, is the capital of the westernmost province of Catalonia.

Getting there

The Seu Vella crowns the hill above the centre of Lleida. Lleida Pirineus station lies on the high-speed line between Madrid and Barcelona. Lleida–Alguaire Airport (ILD) is about 14 km to the northwest in a straight line.