-	All photographs of Mondoñedo Cathedral

Mondoñedo, obliged passage for pilgrims to Santiago de Compostela and birthplace of Álvaro Cunqueiro.

The Cathedral of Mondoñedo is in the province of Lugo, Galicia. It was the bishop Martiño who, between years 1230 and 1248, erected it. The works went on until the end of the next century. It is possible to remark different architectural styles, begining from romanesque, as one sees in the primitive romanesque gate and the main apse. The following enlargements provided the cathedral with baroque ornaments: in the XVI century an ambulatory was added and in the XVIII century, with the redesigning of the facade and the raising of the towers, these two last ones ordered by the bishop Muñoz and Salcedo. It has a ogive shaped rose window frome the XIII century.

Under the pontificate of Don Diego de Soto the cathedral of Mondoñedo is again reformed with the works which take place in the square, leveling both to the same height with the supression of the stair. Moreover, the rose window is enlarged reaching five meters in diameter and the policromy used in the stained glass window generates worth sseing colors from the interior.
Nowadays, due to the low height and the achieved proportions, the Cathedral of Mondoñedo is refered as the “kneeled down Cathedral”.

The paintings of the cathedral are one of the most important collections of wall painting from Galicia. It stands out the “Degollamiento de los Inocentes”, in english “Throatcutting of the Inocents”, and the scenes of San Pedro's life. The gothic ashlar of the choir were carved in walnut tree.

It must be mentioned that Mondoñedo is one of the villages crossed by the North Way of the Camino de Santiago, and it is a place to stop for pilgrim who make up their mind for this way.