The Cathedral: Depending on who you talk to, the Cathedral is not the third largest but the largest such building in the world — its overall surface area, at least, is said to be a bit more than even St. Peter’s if you hold the tape just right. (The Cathedral of Milan makes a similar claim; I haven’t personally measured any of them. I’m usually too busy craning my neck to try and see it all.) Building of the Cathedral was begun at the dawn of the 15th century and finished, mostly, over the next hundred years; many additions have been made since, including some further decoration as recently as the 1920s. Thus there is a mix styles to be seen on the exterior, though the building itself is largely Gothic in design. The site has long been a sacred one: prior to the Cathedral the ground was occupied by the largest mosque in Spain (converted to Christian use in 1248), which had itself been erected upon the ruins of a Visigothic church — the foundations of which were incorporated into the present building. Moorish influence is everywhere; if you look closely, you will even find inscriptions from the Koran on one of the entry portals.

Inside the Cathedral there is a seemingly endless a wealth of art and history, including the tomb of Christopher Columbus (who remains a hero in Spain, notwithstanding any guilty-conscience revisions of the Western hemisphere) and a library containing other Columbian artifacts such as letters and maps.