León Cathedral

León's cathedral, Santa María de Regla, is the Spanish cathedral that went furthest in the Gothic dream of replacing walls with light. It has around 125 windows and about 1,800 square metres of stained glass, most of it made between the thirteenth and fifteenth centuries, one of the largest collections of medieval glass anywhere. On a sunny day the interior is washed in moving colour, and that effect, rather than any single work of art, is the reason to come. Its nickname, Pulchra Leonina, "the beautiful one of León", goes back centuries.

The site has been sacred and royal for a very long time. The Roman Seventh Legion built baths here, whose remains lie beneath the floor; the baths became a palace, and in the tenth century King Ordoño II gave it up for the first cathedral after a victory over the Moors; his tomb is still inside. A Romanesque church followed in the eleventh century. The present building was started around 1205, stalled over foundation problems, and resumed in 1255 under the master mason Enrique, probably a Frenchman who had worked at Burgos. Its plan follows Reims closely, on a smaller scale, which is why it is often called the most French of Spain's cathedrals. The main structure was completed by 1302 and the south tower in the fifteenth century.

That daring came at a price. The stone was poor, the foundations sat on Roman ruins, and the walls were pared down so far that the building became chronically unstable. A vault fell in 1631, a heavy Baroque dome made things worse, and by 1857 stones were dropping from the nave. The restoration that followed, led by Matías Laviña and then Juan de Madrazo, dismantled the later additions, propped the vaults on timber and rebuilt them, and restored the stained glass; the cathedral reopened in 1901 after one of the most ambitious restorations of nineteenth-century Europe.

Beyond the glass, look for the carved west portals with the Virgen Blanca, the fifteenth-century altarpiece by Nicolás Francés, the alabaster retrochoir, and the cloister. The cathedral museum holds around 1,500 pieces, and the archive keeps the Nodicia de Kesos, a list of cheeses that is the earliest written record of the Leonese language. León is a major stop on the Camino de Santiago, and pilgrims are a constant part of the scene. Check visiting hours before going, as services take priority.

Getting there

The cathedral stands in León's old town, about 1.5 km, or roughly 18 minutes' walk, from the railway station, which is served by high-speed trains from Madrid. León Airport (LEN) is about 7 km away.