Palma Cathedral

The morning of Wednesday 30 April, our last day in Palma, was very busy. Sipping coffee in a nice café, to get the morning going, we finally managed to get the website that allowed us to book a permit to visit the Illa de Cabrera to work. The archipelago, which sits a few miles to the south of Mallorca, is a nature and marine reserve and everyone at the hog roast party the previous evening had said how beautiful it is when we talked about visiting.

With the mooring buoy at Cabrera booked for the night we had a final rush around the supermarket as soon as it opened to stock up on fresh rations, which just left us to fit in visiting the cathedral before we left the marina at midday.

In 1229, Jaume 1 of Aragón and Catalunya commanded an invasion force which sat off Mallorca ready to try to expel the Moors. Apparently a fierce gale threaten to sink his fleet and in prayer he promised to build a church if his fleet was saved. It was and so, when the Moors were defeated, he started the 500 year construction of the cathedral on the site of the mosque inside the old Moorish citadel. It is a huge cathedral and sports massive buttresses and, whilst it is veryimposing from close up, we thought actually looked more impressive from further away. That said, the doorways are very elaborately decorated.

Once inside we were immediately wowed by intricately decorated ceilings, red marble floors and a collection of the largest candelabras we had ever seen.

However, it is the nave that is really impressive. It is one of the tallest Gothic structures in Europe with a 44 metre high vaulted ceiling. We were fortunate that on the day we visited the sun shone strongly through the recently renovated stained glass windows and cast wonderful dapples of coloured light across the incredibly slender pillars that support the roof.

Between 1904 and 1914, Antoni Gaudí was responsible the most famous restoration of the cathedral, which, primarily, opened up and brightened its interior (fitting electric lights, re-glazing bricked up windows, moving the choir stalls) as well adding some of his characteristic embellished metalwork.

Part of that restoration included the installation of his controversial baldachin, which hangs over the altar and certainly upset many of the more traditionalist church hierarchy. This large canopy was supposed to be made from wrought iron with hanging lanterns symbolising the Crown of Thorns but it was never completed before Gaudí’s untimely death in Barcelona when he was run over by a tram. So what actually hangs in the cathedral today is the trial mock-up made from cork, cardboard and brocade.

It certainly is different and looked at its best when all of the lanterns were illuminated but it is not the only contemporary creation in the cathedral.

Mallorca’s top contemporary artist, Miquel Barceló, has transformed the Capella del Santíssim i Sante Pere into a wild ceramic representation of the miracle of the feeding of the 5000 with loaves and fish.

Food for thought indeed! We overheard a tour guide telling her group that when Gaudí’s baldachin was installed it was highly controversial and has only really been accepted as worthy to hang in the cathedral since his death. Apparently, many of those who view it believe Barceló’s work to be similarly controversial. Either way, we were both delighted that we had made the time to visit the cathedral and counted ourselves fortunate that, the strong sun outside, allowed us to see the cathedral at its best.