Spain Guide
Around Madrid
Segovia Cathedral
Address: Plaza Mayor
Opening time: Daily spring/summer 9.30am–6.30pm, autumn/winter 9.30am–5.30pm; no visits during Mass; Museum April– Oct Mon– Sat 9am–6.30pm, Sun 1.15–6.30pm; Nov– March Mon– Sat 9.30am–5.30pm, Sun 1.30–5.30pm
Price: Museum €3
Dominating one corner of the bar-filled Plaza Mayor are the exuberant lines of Segovia's Catedral. Construction began in 1525, on the orders of Carlos V, to make amends for the damage done to the city during the comuneros revolt. However, it was not completed for another two hundred years, making it the last major Gothic building in Spain. Accordingly it takes the style to its logical – or perhaps illogical – extreme, with pinnacles and flying buttresses tacked on at every conceivable point.
Though impressive for its size alone, the cathedral's interior is surprisingly bare for so florid a construction and its space is cramped by a great green marble coro at its very centre. The treasures are almost all confined to the museum, which opens off the cloisters. On the opposite side of the plaza is the Iglesia San Miguel, the church where Isabel la Católica was crowned queen of Castile in 1474.