catedral de santa maria

Although not religious, I love churches for their architecture and space and the cathedral of Santa Maria which is currently undergoing a major renovation and structural underpinning project is an absolute gem and a tour that you absolutely must take when you are in this city. Fascinating and rewarding in every way, I really enjoyed this!

After seing the cathedrals of Leon, Burgos, Santa Maria del Mar in Barcelona, Notre Damme of Paris...this isn't a great cathedral, or church.But the project that the city has taken on to rehabilitate, analyse, catalogue, study....everything about this building, and expose the work in progress is such a unique and wonderful experience. I assume that this won't be an interesting visit once the project is finished, but while this is on... I just loved it. Absolute must visit in a trip to Europe. I hope other cathedrals follow this example in the future

I set off for the Cathedral but the old town is such a maze I was going round in circles. I got there just before 10 am but trying to find the entrance for the tours is another trek. Due to an excessive aggrandisement of the building through the centuries the foundations were crumbling and the Cathedral had to be closed in 1994. Since then they have been working on it and the tour was an architectural one rather than an art or religious one. Luckily, after waiting only half an hour, I was able to get on a tour in English. There were only 3 on the tour and the other two were Spanish. Did I feel guilty that they had to cope with English explanation in their own country. No. We had to wear hard hats and we were taken from the foundations to the upper reaches up lots of twisty steps and mind your head passages. The guide was excellent pointing out the frightening cracks in the walls and how the arches had fallen out of alignment. It was an unusual, amazing and unforgettable experience.

We had to pay for admission although the building is being restored.After a queue we were told that it could only be seen on a guided tour. We should return the next day it we wanted it in English.For a European Heritage site supported by the money of taxpayers, this is not good enough.

Make sure you book a visit, otherwise you'll only see it from the outside, which is, let's be honest, quite poor look because of all the ladders and scaffoldings.

one of the nicest Cathedrals - and we have seen quite a few on our recent travels of Ireland, France and Spain

Nice guided visit through the cathedral in the middle of massive reconstruction (it was quite close to collapsing, so they started to reinforce the foundation and arcs about 10 years ago). Though not sure if it's available in English, I must admit I had hard times trying to follow very fast Spanish speech interspersed with construction terms

It is a great experience to be inside of such an old building, learning about its building though many hundreds of yers of hard work... You can feel that you are part of the history.

Apart from the Spanish tour guide who spoke English with such a thick accent that I couldn't understand a word, this was a remarkable tour of a large cathedral which has been rescued from falling down. The foundations weren't good enough, and it really is in danger of falling down. Now there are massive engineering efforts to rescue it. Impressive.

We turned up to book an English speaking tour to be told that there weren't any that day but we could go with the Spanish one. The very helpful lady then did some checking and said there was in fact one in half an hour! We were the only two visitors with the guide who spoke excellent English and was incredibly knowledgeable (I wish I could remember her name). We did the cathedral and the bell tower and it was fascinating. The work they are having to do to safeguard the future of the building is enormous and having the opportunity to look at the extent of the work was enthralling.Well worth E 8.50.

This was a great find! You get to get up in the rafters with hard hats on and explore the cathedral in a way you hardly ever get to!

We booked this tour online but paid on the day. As we had a tour in English we had the guide to ourselves. The tour took about one hour and their was plenty of time for questions. It's wonderful to see a building like this up close and to learn about it's history. A must in Vitoria.

Spent ages looking around this beautifull cathedral well worth the time amazing place. Even if you don't do cathedrals or churches this is a must

One of the best and more interesting in the Basque Country, and in the centre of the old quarter. Check out the surrounding area for the venerable buildings close by the cathedral.

This was truly the highlight of our short visit to V-G. We booked the restoration tour online at the Santa Maria website. The guide must have been a trained engineer herself since she knew so much about the construction and history.catedralvitoria.com/ingles/visitas_reservas.…It was such a memorable experience to see the excavated areas, walk across the scaffolding, squeeze through the narrow archways high above the nave of the church and see the town from the roof! I wish I had a spy camera with me since no photography was allowed (just kidding, I don't own a spy camera).