Travel Day 806 – Barcelona, SPAIN
It was our first full Arrival Day in Barcelona and we already completely acclimatized to the nice spring weather. The only headache we had after breakfast was due to a little mission impossible…
La Sagrada Familia under full Construction in Barcelona, Spain
The first and very important task we had on our agenda was to find a bookstore with the perfect travel guide of Spain and Portugal. As we didn’t manage to get at home exactly what we wanted, it became quite a quest to find it now. Luckily we could already use the chance to explore around Placa de Catalunya and the area of the University with all its bookshops. In the end we found a decent compromise and then we were finally off to explore the city…
Since it was such a nice, warm and sunny day, we really enjoyed to walk around with the quest to find some of the UNESCO World Heritage enlisted works of Antoni Gaudi. The first one we reached was Casa Batllo, which apparently was private property and came with a pretty high entrance fee, the second one was La Pedrera, which only allowed access to a museum and the roof, but the third one was probably one of the most exciting buildings I had ever seen: La Sagrada Familia…
UNESCO Antoni Gaudi facade of La Sagrada Familia in Barcelona, Spain
Unfortunately when we arrived we found this unreal looking church under full construction. Well, actually it had been under construction since 1882 with Antoni Gaudi being around for about 40 years of its construction work, but after his death it had never been completed. To this day only about 50% of the entire project had been constructed. But with all the tower cranes around and the obvious activity going on, it seemed that La Sagrada Familia was at least quite an active construction site at the present moment…
Only one façade had been built under the supervision of Gaudi himself and while walking around, it became quite obvious which one it was. While the first side of the building we saw was rather minimalistic and rigid, the opposite facade seemed to be completely alive and strangely organic. Actually the entire facade looked like a cartoon version of a slowly melting chocolate church. But either way you looked at it, it was simply amazing…
Flower Stems and Blossoms inside of La Sagrada Familia in Barcelona, Spain
The only thing more amazing was the interior of the building. Everything inside La Sagrada Familia seemed organic and alive as well, with flower stems holding up a roof of blooming blossoms in different colors. With everything looking just simply amazing as it appeared, it was up to the imagination of every visitor to visualize how great this UNESCO enlisted building could have looked like if Gaudi had actually finished his entire project…
After that great visit we were off to a walk around the harbour and the beaches, but not without stopping for some nice Tapas in the warm afternoon sun. The food was good and the walk was really enjoyable in the mild climate. Also the fact that the sun was setting rather at 6pm instead of 4pm in Germany made us appreciate even more to be in this beautiful part of Europe, even if it was just for a few days…
It will take a long time until they finish it. But I honestly like it with the four towers… The final design is although interesting, strongly different from the look that I’ve gotten used to.
That is actually true! The model of the Sagrada Familia was really massive and I too thought that it looked quite different from what one would expect to see…