Soller, Mallorca, Spain - May 26, 2016: Panoramic view of a town center of Soller with Sant Bartomeu Church on Placa de sa Constitucio, Majorca.

Andrei Bortnikau/Shutterstock

Església de Sant Bartomeu

Sóller


A disciple of architect Antoni Gaudí, Joan Rubió landed some big commissions in Sóller. The town didn't want to miss the wave of modernity and so Rubió set to work in 1904 on the renovation of the 16th-century Església de Sant Bartomeu. The largely baroque church (built 1688–1723) preserved elements of its earlier Gothic interior, but Rubió gave it a beautiful, if unusual, modernist facade.

The interior is sombre overhead, but several of the bright and gilded side chapels poke from the gloom among rows of devotional candle flames, while the fine altarpiece is a towering and ostentatious focal point. To the left of the altar is a small copy in oil of The Last Supper. You'll have a wonderful perspective by walking towards the altar, and then turning for a view of the chandelier, organ and luminous rose window. The church's candelabra-like summit is visible from all over town, set against the looming backdrop of the Serra de Tramuntana.