Despite being one of the most visited cities in Spain, Palma de Mallorca is still an unknown quantity to many tourists. Beyond its coves and crystal clear waters, this city has one of the richest and best cared for historical centres in Spain. There have been several architectural styles that have shaped the city, but there has certainly been one which has imposed: the Gothic. This style was used in the area beyond the time limits that corseted the rest of Europe. Here you can admire Gothic buildings built in the sixteenth century. The Cathedral and its famous rose window, nicknamed the Eye of the Gothic, are the most emblematic. Other examples are found in the market, numerous castles

A stroll through the most representative monuments of Cáceres will not last more than 10 km, but this distance we will be enough go through 25,000 years of history (and prehistory). This is the age of the Matravieso Cave, a palaeolithic enclave that forms part of the city. It was discovered in the 1950s in a large chalk operation. Remains of bodies, ceramics and cave wall art highlight the value of this grotto as compared with the neighbouring Cueva de Santa Ana and El Conejar. A leap in history brings us to the Norba Caesarina, the name with which the Romans baptised this area. In the outskirts of the city, in Aldea Moret, we can find the last remains of this civilisation, watchto

According to the National Institute of Statistics, Campillo de las Ranas, in Guadalajara (in the province of Castilla La Mancha), officially has 198 inhabitants. One hundred and seventeen are men and 81 are women. However, despite its small population, this village has the honour of being one of the places where most weddings are held and also one of the most characteristic destinations of the so-called “black architecture”, a kind of popular house construction that uses slate, a mineral of grey, violet and bluish tones, as its main raw material. This gives the village a characteristic dark colour which, curiously, contrasts perfectly with the white of the weddings. Of

Indianos. This was the name given to Spaniards who set off for America in search of fortune and years later managed to return to their homelands with their dreams fulfilled. One such ‘Indian’ was Vitorón, a man from Felechosa, a small village in Asturias between the San Isidro and Las Fuentes ski resorts, 50 kilometres from the coast. When Vitorón embarked for Cuba, he left behind a girlfriend in Felechosa. Having made his money, he managed to return home. As he had so longed to return home, when he came back Vitorón had the plans for the house of his dreams in his case. It was a mansion in Cuban style, a beautiful building whose only problem was its

In Spanish territory in North Africa, there is a corner where lovers of floral motifs and the typical curves of this style can satisfy their sights. This city is Melilla, which in the early 20th century saw how a disciple of the architect Antoni Gaudí believed in the possibilities of a city which had been the birthplace of five different cultures before becoming the Modernist capital of Africa, and an honourable sister of Barcelona. His name was Enrique Nieto and his beginnings in Melilla were not easy even though he had worked with Gaudí himself on the Casa Milà in Barcelona. He came to Melilla in 1909 and immediately found that the local architects were not goi

Pilgrims always have three things to hand: a bottle of water, a spare pair of socks and a cardboard passport stamped by the different refuges and churches they find along their way. Each place has its own stamp and they usually reflect the building they represent. Thick-walled Romanesque churches with scarce windows; modest chapels hidden in the forests of Galicia; and the last church, Santiago Cathedral with its baroque facade and Romanesque layout. Before they smell the incense of thurable and cast their view on the infinite details of the Obradoiro facade, pilgrims will have had their passport stamped in all of these anonymous temples of hidden beauty, but equally spectacular. One

To think of Antoni Gaudí is to think of Barcelona, of the impossible spires of the Sagrada Familia and the colourful mosaics of the Parque Güell. However, the brilliant architect three times left his print outside his birthplace. On two occasions, he did so almost simultaneously in the 1890s in León. Astorga Episcopal Palace and Casa Botines are not found amongst the architect’s most popular works, but they are two of the most important works of his career. The harsh Castilian climate forced Gaudí to make changes in his particular style. The thick walls and the slate roofs of Casa Botines are a clear example of this. However, the architect did not give