Girona Cathedral

The widest Gothic nave in the world, reached by Girona's famous baroque staircase

The Cathedral of Santa Maria, reached by a sweeping baroque staircase of 86 steps, is Girona's centrepiece. Construction spanned from the 11th to the 18th century, meaning the building combines Romanesque cloisters, a Gothic nave, and a baroque façade in an unusually harmonious way.

The interior is dominated by the single nave, the widest in any Gothic building in the world. The Cathedral Treasury holds two extraordinary objects: the Tapestry of Creation (11th century), a Romanesque embroidery depicting the Genesis narrative with exceptional craftsmanship, and the illuminated Beatus manuscript (10th century). Both are worth the entry fee alone. The Romanesque cloister on the north side, with its carved capitals, is one of the finest in Catalonia.

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A story
The nave's remarkable width — 22.98 metres, wider than any other Gothic cathedral in Europe — was the result of a bold engineering gamble. The building committee in the 15th century debated for decades whether such a wide single nave was structurally possible. They finally commissioned reports from twelve master builders across Europe; eleven said it was feasible, one said it was not. The wide nave went ahead.