Santa Maria Cathedral

The Cathedral of Santa María in Vitoria-Gasteiz, the Santa Maria Cathedral, is known as the Old Cathedral, to distinguish it from the nineteenth- and twentieth-century cathedral on the other side of the city, and it crowns the hill on which the medieval town of Gasteiz was founded. The building is a Gothic church, begun in the thirteenth century and built over the following hundred years, in the shape of a Latin cross. In its earliest form it was partly a fortified church, built into the town walls, which is why the towers and thick walls have a defensive air. Over the centuries the city grew around it, and the church became the religious centre of the old quarter.

The building became famous for an unusual reason. In the 1990s the structure showed serious signs of damage, with cracks and deformation that threatened its stability, and it was closed in 1994. Rather than keeping the site shut during the work, the city launched a restoration project called Abierto por obras, or open for works, which let visitors enter the cathedral wearing hard hats and watch the conservation in progress. This approach was widely admired as a model of heritage management, and the cathedral reopened after the main work, though conservation continues.

The façade has elaborate carving. The main portal is decorated with sculptures and relief panels showing biblical scenes, saints and the Last Judgement, painted originally in bright colours, and some of the carving has been restored. Inside, the nave has high vaults, pointed arches and a tall triforium, the gallery above the arcades. There are tombs, medieval paintings and sculpture, and in the crypt the foundations show the various stages of building. The cathedral is recognised as a site of cultural interest.

Visits are made by guided tour, and tickets usually have to be booked in advance. Different tours emphasise the crypt, the triforium, the walkways over the roof, the tower views and the sections of the medieval wall seen from inside the building. The tour that includes the tower gives a view over the city’s rooftops and the plain of Álava, called Araba in Basque. A visit takes one to two hours, and tickets are collected at the visitors’ centre shortly before the start.

The cathedral stands on Santa Maria Plaza, in the upper part of the old town, a short walk from the Plaza de la Virgen Blanca. Vitoria-Gasteiz, in the Basque Country of Spain, has a pleasant green belt around the city, the Artium Centre, the Basque Museum of Contemporary Art, and the Museo de Arqueología y Historia, all of which fit into a day in the Basque capital.