I love the smell of old incense and snuffed candles, and the way sunlight slants through the dust, the brilliant colours of stained glass, and the endless echoes of voices, organ music, and history.

I grew up and went to school in the shadow of Salisbury Cathedral and thought nothing of it. Then I spent the first 12 years of my professional career photographing every cathedral in England in great detail, working through long winter nights, exploring every tower and triforium, every spire and spiral staircase. I grew to love them. I met my wife, Evelyn, while working in Canterbury Cathedral.

Now, whenever we go back to Europe from our home in Wellington, where there‘s nothing really old, we have to get a cathedral fix. In 2006 we decide upon a cathedral fi nding journey across Northern Spain from Santiago, on the Atlantic, through Leon, Burgos, Santo Domingo, and Zaragoza, to Barcelona on the Mediterranean; a sort­of backwards pilgrimage, following the ancient Pilgrims‘ Way in reverse.

In Santiago de Compostela the fa鏰de of the cathedral, with its twin spires and fi ligree detailing, is like a vast baroque wedding cake, that dominates this beautiful little medieval city. It dates from 1738, but the Romanesque church that it conceals is 600 years older. A magnifi cent curved staircase leads weary pilgrims up to the ancient porch that is flanked by a host of fi gures carved in stone. Christ and St James are surrounded by various lesser saints and heralded by 24 musicians, each playing a different instrument. Visitors still place reverential hands on the well­worn centre pillar, the Tree of David, as they have done for centuries.

Santiago was the destination of one of three great pilgrimages of the Middle Ages (the others being Jerusalem and Canterbury) and, by the twelfth century, up to two million people each year travelled the Camino de Santiago, the Way of St James, from all over Western Europe. They came to have their sins absolved by praying at the shrine of the apostle St James, (Santiago in Spanish) whose remains, according to legend, were brought here from the Holy Land in 44AD.

Now, inside the cathedral, pilgrims and tourists queue to see an ornate silver chest containing the remains of the saint and to kiss the cloak of his statue nearby. He looks like a benevolent old man but, downstairs in the museum, there‘s a statue of him on horseback, sword raised, busily beheading Muslims. By the ninth century he had become the fi gurehead for a campaign to end Moorish occupation of Spain. This violent image of religious strife is strangely topical and, in some ways, not much has changed in 1200 years.

After a week enjoying Santiago, we head east to Leon, driving on brand new motorways, sweeping high through mountains and leaping across gorges on beautiful bridges. Everywhere there are rows of vast wind turbines on the skyline, like armies of invading aliens.

Leon is a lively little city built around a busy central square and in the middle stands an impressive, if rather oddly proportioned, cathedral. The interior glows with colour from hundreds of stained­glass windows, made 700 years ago to illustrate Bible stories to the illiterate masses.

We can‘t leave Leon without visiting the Church of St Isidore. It has one of the most glorious Romanesque ceilings in Europe, its colours still as fresh as the day they were painted. Christ is in the centre surrounded by the symbols of the Four Evangelists, the shepherds in the fi eld, and a wonderful country calendar showing what Medieval farmers did each month of the year. Burgos Cathedral, 200 kilometres further on, is the most complete Gothic church in Spain and we have a wonderful view of it from our hotel.

The exterior is beautiful, looking more French than Spanish, but the vistas of the great gothic interior are cluttered with renaissance screens and altarpieces. There are lovely details, and the highlight is the hexagonal fi fteenth century chapel of the High Constable of Castile. Soaring columns carry eyes up to a stellar vault high above the tomb of the man himself, Don Pedro Fern醤dez de Velasco, and his wife, Do馻 Menc韆 de Mendoza. Their marble effi gies sleep peacefully side­by­side, resplendent in fabulous costumes.

We leave motorway behind and drive for a couple of hours up a windy country road bringing us to Santo Domingo de la Calzada, a remote hilltop town on the Pilgrims‘ Way. We check into a comfortable hotel, in a converted 800­year­old pilgrims‘ hostel, next to the cathedral.

This church is a little gem of the Transitional style, when Romanesque was blossoming into Gothic. There are lovely tombs here, too, with glorious painted murals. A small silver statue of Saint Domingo is in an alcove, fl anked by a couple of chickens. That‘s unusual enough but even stranger is the sound of a cock crowing inside the church. We look up and there, in a large ornate cage set high up into the wall, are a white cock and hen, alive and clucking.

A little poem on the wall adds to the mystery: "Santo Domingo de la Calzada, que canto la gallina depu閟 de asada" "Santo Domingo de la Calzada, where the hen sings after being roasted."

The chickens are kept here to commemorate a 750­year­old legend about a boy who was wrongly accused of robbing a pilgrim. He was hanged, and when his parents went to retrieve his body they were told the saint, Santo Domingo, had revived him. They rushed to the magistrate‘s house, to tell him of the miracle and to plead for their son‘s return, and found the magistrate sitting down to dine on a plate piled high with roast chickens. When the he heard their story he laughed: "Your son is as alive as these chickens on my plate." and immediately the birds sat up and began to sing. On our way to Barcelona we stop briefly in Zaragoza, the ancient capital of Aragon, to explore the vast basilica built on the spot where the Virgin Mary appeared to St James. She was, apparently, standing on a column, which is preserved in the church. In a unusual daily ritual choirboys take young children up, one at a time, to touch it, and to be photographed next to it by doting parents.

I was surprised to learn that Barcelona, a trendy modern city, has, at its heart, the largest medieval quarter in Europe and here we find, almost hidden away, the Catedral de la Seu. Down a narrow side street there‘s a small door leading through the cloisters where there‘s a gaggle of white geese around a fountain.

We don‘t find this surprising having just seen chickens in Santo Domingo‘s church. The interior of the cathedral is wide and spacious, with an octagonal dome in the centre, and hundreds of candles burning in multicoloured glass holders. The incredible workmanship of elaborately carved wooden choir stalls, each with its own family crest, is a joy.

In Barcelona, the city that inspired Picasso, Miro, and Dali, the most visible artistic creations are those of Antonio Gaudi. He built many extraordinary buildings but the most famous is the vast church of the Holy Family, the Sagrada Fam韑ia, started in 1882 and still under construction. The building of this church is a modern saga. Gaudi was killed by a tram in 1926 and, 10 years later, the plans were destroyed in an Anarchist riot. Nevertheless work was restarted in 1952, and now the aim is to have it fi nished by 2026, in time for the centenary of Gaudi‘s death.

The stonework is Gothic in scale but organic in feeling, like an enchanted forest, and after trailing through the scaffolding­fi lled interior we climb a narrow stone staircase spiralling up inside a 100­metre­high tower. There are eight of these towers and another ten are still to be built. We emerge on a tiny stone bridge with terrifi c views over the city and sea.

Watching this place, under construction, using modern equipment and technology ­ tower cranes, concrete, and computers ­ makes us appreciate, even more, the skills and vision of the builders of the medieval cathedrals, who worked engineering miracles with none of these things. It makes a fitting end to our journey through a thousand years of architectural history.