Oviedo Cathedral

Stand in the open square and listen for a moment. Footsteps echo off the paving stones, and somewhere a café spoon rings against a cup. Ahead of you, a single stone tower rises against the soft, often cloudy Asturian sky. The stone is pale and golden, with darker patches where rain and moss have left their mark. This is the Cathedral of San Salvador, the Holy Saviour, and it sits at the heart of a story much older than its walls.

First, look closely at the front of the building. You might notice something a little uneven about it. The design called for two towers, one on each side of the main entrance. Only one was ever finished. The single tower on the left carries the whole weight of the facade's drama, with its open stonework and its tall, needle-like spire. That lopsided balance has become part of the cathedral's character. Many visitors never notice that a twin is missing.

The Gothic building you see today went up slowly, mostly between the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries. Gothic, in simple terms, is the style of pointed arches, tall windows and stone ribs that reach toward the ceiling. Building in stone was costly and slow, and work often paused for decades. So the cathedral is not the product of one moment. It carries the ideas of several generations of builders, each adding their own layer to the work of the last.

But the real heart of this place is far older than the Gothic stone. Long before the present cathedral, Oviedo was the capital of the small Christian Kingdom of Asturias. In the early ninth century, King Alfonso the Second, remembered as Alfonso the Chaste, built a church and a royal complex on this site. Much of that early work was later replaced. One remarkable part survived, and it is the reason many people come here.

That survivor is the Cámara Santa, the Holy Chamber. It is a small, two-level chapel built in the pre-Romanesque style of Asturias. Pre-Romanesque simply means the architecture that came before the great Romanesque churches of medieval Europe. Here it shows in thick walls, rounded arches and a feeling of compact, protective strength. The chamber was built to hold sacred treasures. It still does, more than a thousand years later.

Inside the Holy Chamber, look for two jewelled crosses. The Cross of the Angels is linked to King Alfonso the Second and dates to the early ninth century. The Victory Cross came about a century later, under King Alfonso the Third. Here is a detail that surprises many visitors. The Victory Cross is the emblem on the flag of Asturias today. You may have already seen it on balconies and souvenirs around the city.

The chamber also guards the Holy Ark, a carved chest of relics, and a fine box decorated with agate stones. The most famous object, however, is a simple, stained piece of linen. It is called the Sudarium of Oviedo. Tradition holds that this cloth covered the face of Christ after his death. The cloth is normally kept out of sight. It is shown to the faithful only on a few special days of the year, including Good Friday.

The twentieth century was hard on these treasures. In 1934, during a violent uprising in Asturias, explosives badly damaged the Holy Chamber. It was later carefully rebuilt. Then, in 1977, thieves broke in and stole several of the precious objects, damaging some of them. The pieces were recovered and restored. So when you look at those crosses, you are seeing objects that have survived war, explosions and theft.

Now think about the people who walked here before you. For centuries, Oviedo has been a key stop for pilgrims on the way to Santiago de Compostela. Locals still repeat an old saying. It goes roughly like this: whoever goes to Santiago and not to the Saviour visits the servant but leaves out the Lord. The idea was simple. Saint James lay in Santiago, but here was the house of the Saviour himself.

This connection runs deep. According to tradition, King Alfonso the Second was among the very first pilgrims to travel to the tomb of Saint James. His route from Oviedo is now known as the Camino Primitivo, the Original Way. Walkers still set out from this cathedral today. Watch for the small scallop shells on backpacks. The scallop is the symbol of the pilgrimage, and you will often see it around this square.

When you step inside the main church, let your eyes travel to the high altar. Behind it stands a huge altarpiece, carved and covered in gold leaf in the early sixteenth century. It is filled with small scenes from the life of Christ, arranged in panels like the pages of a book. In the low light, the gold glows warmly. Take your time here. The longer you look, the more tiny figures appear.

The cathedral also holds a Pantheon of Kings, a resting place linked to the early Asturian monarchs. And there is a quiet Gothic cloister, a covered walkway around an open courtyard, where the noise of the city fades away. Outside again, look across the square for the bronze statue of a woman. She is La Regenta, heroine of a famous nineteenth-century Spanish novel by the writer Clarín. The book opens with this very tower, in a city based on Oviedo.

Before you walk on, turn back and look at the facade once more. Notice the single tower, the missing twin, the darker stains of Asturian rain on the stone. Behind those walls, a small chamber has kept its treasures for more than a thousand years. As you leave the square, listen again to the footsteps and the café voices. You are standing in the same place where kings, pilgrims and writers once stood and looked up.