Lleida
Determined to visit all 4 of Catalonia's provincial capitals, I made a day trip to Lleida by train. It's less of a tourist destination, but very worth a visit.
Its towering old cathedral, la Seu Vella, sits atop a hill well above the town center.
Today town and cathedral are connected by an impressively tall elevator. I didn't have enough time to figure out how one historically would have made the ascent by foot.
The Seu Vella complex is stunning both for its siting and its glorious cloister, which overlooks the town and countryside. It was decommissioned as the cathedral in the 18th century and incorporated into a hilltop fortification used in the war of Spanish Succession, contemporaneous with the castle of Sant Ferran. A new cathedral (la Seu Nova) was built in the city center. As a result, the church is empty of liturgical furnishings, which to me emphasizes its austere grandeur.
I climbed the 240 steps up to the top of the belltower, for an even more expansive view.
The lower city has a nice Calle Mayor, with two covered arcades which came in handy for eating outside on a rainy day.
Like so many Catalan towns, Lleida has a lovely selection of Catalan Modernist buildings. I also visited the Palace of the Paeria, which had a beautifully intact archaeological site in its basement, including an Al-Andalus era bathhouse.
It also has a beautiful river, the Segre, which has a lush naturalized riverbed that cuts a wide green swath through the city.
