Almudena Cathedral: An Attraction Worth Seeing

Spain, with this one word a person will conjure up many images in his mind of bullfighting arenas, beautiful women and beaches on which to bathe and sleep for hours. Perhaps you have not even considered that there are beautiful buildings to visit there as well.

This can be said about many buildings in Spain but the building that I speak of is located in the beautiful city Madrid in Spain and it is called the Almudena Cathedral. Where this cathedral now stands used to be what is said to be the only church that happened to be dedicated to Maria de la Almudena who was a Saint revered by the people of Spain.

The history of this beautiful structure is rich. Unfortunately we cannot get into the complete history but we will take a look at the basics and in turn, many of you will hopefully go on to research this gem of architecture by yourself when you have finished reading this.

This cathedral was designed and the building started back in 1883 after the citizens of Madrid got their permission from the powers that be to build there. The cathedral’s design is one of a neo Gothic nature and is said to contain a tomb which has a lovely picture of the Virgin de la Almudena.

The construction of the cathedral was finished in 1993, it was then consecrated by Pope John Paul the second. Now, it should be noted that when this church was designed (as previously mentioned) back in the 16th century, they had to hold off on building the cathedral because of various legal mumbo jumbo, mostly of a political nature and the fact that someone who had a lot of power and money did not want it to be built.

Suffice it to say that after much debate, the building of the cathedral resumed and the result is the beautiful building that stands there today. When you get there and look at the beautiful structure both inside and outside, you will appreciate all of the labour that went into the construction of this building, both labour of love and physical labour as well.

This building may not be very famous to the world but it is worth taking the time to appreciate and if you really want to find another reason to visit, you should know that it was the location of the wedding ceremony of Dona Letizia and Prince Felipe which took place in the month of May, 2004.

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