Rising from the water
Gothic over the bay's mirror — the Mediterranean's famous view.
Thomas Wolf, www.foto-tw.de — CC BY-SA 3.0 de · Isiwal — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Fedoce1 (Fernando Domínguez Cerejido) — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Tommie Hansen from Stockholm, Sweden — CC BY 2.0
La Seu is the Mediterranean's Gothic wonder: a cathedral rising straight from the bay's water — Europe's most famous maritime cathedral view — with a nave among Gothic's very highest (44 metres) and the great "Gothic eye": the largest original Gothic rose window, thirteen metres across, setting mornings alight. Raised over the city's mosque after 1229 across four centuries — then touched twice by the modern age: Gaudí restored the interior and hung his famous baldachin over the altar, and the contemporary Miquel Barceló clad a side chapel in fantastical oceanic ceramic that stirred the world. Each new year brings its magic event: the Festival of the Eight, when the great rose projects perfectly onto its opposite in light — and online booking spares the long summer queue.
Gothic over the bay's mirror — the Mediterranean's famous view.
The iron-and-light crown over the altar — the genius's touch.
A cracked ceramic ocean of loaves and fish — startling, dazzling contemporaneity.
Plaça de l'Almoina, 07001 Palma
Royal Palace of La AlmudainaThe Almudaina — from the Arabic al-mudayna, the citadel — was the Muslim wali's 1 minute walk4.6
Arab Baths of PalmaA small bath chamber in the old town of Palma, and the clearest thing to survive3 minutes walk3.4
Sa LlotjaSa Llotja is Valencia's Lonja's sister and elder teacher: Mallorca's merchant ex4 minutes walk4.6
Can Forteza ReyA residential building in central old Palma, and the city's best-known modernist6 minutes walk4.7
Es Baluard Contemporary Art MuseumEs Baluard is Palma's architectural intelligence: the Sant Pere bastion of the s8 minutes walk4.1On the mornings of 2 February and 11 November the rising sun drives the great rose's light to land exactly beneath its western twin — a double luminous figure-eight filling the cathedral at dawn. Calendar coincides? Don't miss it.