Seville Cathedral & La Giralda

The clergy who commissioned this building in 1403 allegedly declared, "Let us build a church so great that those who see it finished will think we were mad." They may have succeeded. Seville Cathedral is the largest Gothic cathedral in the world by volume, stretching 127 metres long and 83 metres wide, with a central nave soaring 42 metres overhead. The whole project took just over a century to complete, rising on the footprint of the Almohad mosque that had stood here since 1182.

The mosque is not entirely gone. The Patio de los Naranjos — the old ablutions courtyard — still holds its original fountain and rows of bitter orange trees, and the mosque's minaret survives as the cathedral's bell tower, La Giralda. Built in 1198 under the Almohad dynasty, the tower was so admired by the Christian conquerors that they kept it rather than tear it down. A Renaissance belfry was stacked on top in the sixteenth century, bringing its total height to 105 metres. Instead of stairs, the tower has 35 ramps spiraling through seven vaulted chambers — wide enough that the muezzin could ride a horse to the top.

Christopher Columbus is buried here, though he took a scenic route to get there. His remains were shipped from Valladolid to Santo Domingo, then Havana, and finally back to Seville in 1898. The elaborate tomb in the transept shows four kings carrying his coffin, representing the kingdoms of Castile, Leon, Aragon, and Navarre. DNA tests in 2006 confirmed the bones are indeed his, settling a century-old dispute with the Dominican Republic.

The cathedral and the adjacent Alcazar and Archivo de Indias were jointly declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1987, forming one of the most remarkable clusters of historic architecture in Europe.