Cathedral of the Holy Cross and Saint Eulalia
— — the geese in the cloister, one for each year of her life.
Not only on a wall.
“The cathedral of Barcelona, on a stone square in the Gothic Quarter. Inside the cloister, thirteen white geese, one for each year of Saint Eulalia's life, keep up an unbroken racket beneath a magnolia tree. Her tomb lies in the crypt below the high altar. The main facade looks medieval but was finished in 1913 from a fifteenth-century design that was never built in its time.
Cathedral of the Holy Cross and Saint Eulalia, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
The Cathedral of the Holy Cross and Saint Eulalia, known to Barcelonans simply as La Seu, is the seat of the Archbishop of Barcelona and the spiritual heart of the Gothic Quarter. The main structure was built between 1298 and 1420 in the Catalan Gothic style on the site of an earlier Romanesque cathedral and, before that, a Visigothic basilica. It is dedicated jointly to the True Cross and to Saint Eulalia, co-patron of the city, who was martyred at thirteen during the Roman persecution of Christians around 304.
The cathedral is built from local Montjuïc sandstone, the same yellow-grey stone that runs through medieval Barcelona. The main facade and the central spire were finished in 1913, completing a design drawn in 1408 by the French architect Charles Galters that had stood unbuilt for five centuries. Inside, twenty-eight side chapels ring the nave. The cloister opens to a small garden with a fountain, a magnolia, and the famous flock of thirteen white geese, traditionally kept since the medieval period.
The cathedral stands on the Pla de la Seu in the Barri Gòtic, a short walk from the Plaça de Sant Jaume. Entry to the nave is free outside paid tourist hours, and a single ticket covers the choir, the rooftop, and the cloister. Saint Eulalia's tomb is in the crypt beneath the high altar; her feast day is 12 February, when Barcelona celebrates the festa major d'hivern. The closest metro is Jaume I on the yellow line, a few minutes on foot.