León - Colegiata de San Isidoro

From the Palacio de los Guzmanes it is a few minutes' walk along Calle del Cid (behind the Palacio), passing the Jardín Romántico, to the collegiate church of San Isidoro.

The church can be reached from the cathedral by following the well preserved old town walls (northeast of the choir), going north and then turning west. The walls, which date in part from the third century A.D. and are reinforced by numerous round towers (cubos), lead to one of the old town gates, the massive Puerta del Castillo (1759), southwest of which, by way of Plaza del Castillo, is the Plaza de San Isidoro.

The square is dominated by the Colegiata de San Isidoro, which originated as a 10th Century church but which was completed in its present form in 1149. It is of great importance to Spanish Catholics as the last resting place of San Isidoro, bishop of Seville and the greatest Visigothic doctor of the church, whose remains were brought here from Seville by Ferdinand I in 1063. At the west end of the church rises a massive Romanesque tower. The finest features of the exterior are the two Romanesque doorways on the south front, which faces on to the square: on the left the Puerta del Cordero (Doorway of the Lamb), the main doorway, with sculptured figures of San Isidoro and San Pelayo and the Lamb of God, and on the right the Puerta del Perdón, with a relief of the Crucifixion.