route 12 Trail through the Cidade da Cultura and Alameda Park

Received the name Obradoiro for having held for almost ten years, from 1738 to 1747, the obradoiro (“workshop”) where the stones for the Baroque façade, created by Galician architect Fernando de Casas Novoa to substitute the primitive Romanesque one, were cut. The towers reach a height of 74 meters. On one side is Xelmírez Palace, built in the XII century, at the same time as the original Romanesque cathedral. The canons’ residence, on the other side, currently hosts the Cathedral Museum.
Other three buildings, of diverse periods and styles, close out the square. San Xerome College, founded by bishop Fonseca, has a Romanesque-pointed façade. Raxoi Palace, in a Neoclassical style from the XVIII century, was built as a confessors’ seminary, residence for the cathedral’s choir children, and house of the town hall. And the Royal Hospital, built by the Catholic Monarchs to house pilgrims and the sick is a beautiful example of the plateresque style, uncommon in Galicia, and currently functions as a state-run hotel.