Cathedral of Astorga

The Catedral de Santa María was built in stages between 1471 and 1693, which is why it manages to be Gothic, Renaissance and Baroque all at once. The east end and the soaring nave are late Gothic; the western facade with its two pinnacled towers is a piece of late seventeenth-century theatre carved in pinkish sandstone. The interior is generous and luminous, with a magnificent walnut retablo by the Renaissance sculptor Gaspar Becerra (1558–62) that takes up the entire eastern end of the choir.

The cathedral museum — entered from inside the church — holds an unusually rich collection for a small city: a tenth-century reliquary, processional crosses, Flemish tapestries, and a wonderful collection of polychrome wood sculpture. Combined ticket with the Palacio Episcopal is the best value. Allow at least an hour for the two together.

things to do sight architecture
A story
Look up at the south tower and you will see a stone figure in seventeenth- century costume — Pero Mato, a local muleteer-soldier said to have rescued a captured battle standard at the Battle of Clavijo. The original wooden weather-vane figure was replaced in stone in 1748, and the people of Astorga have insisted on his presence at the top of their cathedral ever since, no matter how many restorations the towers have undergone.

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