After our dive we showered, got lunch, and drove down to Barcelona. We were mostly going to see the Sagrada Familia, but also figured we'd muck about a bit. We parked our car and got a ride on a Hop-On Hop-Off bus.
Dan is very excited to be in Barcelona.
We passed a random beer festival, so we got off the bus at the next stop to check out the festival.
Make Tacos not War. A California Taco Truck.
A view down the beer tents. This thing is a cooling station. It misted air at you.
And now, the beers:
We had a few beers and some very delicious dumplings and then decided to continue our mucking about in the direction of the Sagrada Familia.
The Sea!
Some art....or something. The HardRock Cafe is near here.
We transferred busses to get us over to the Sagrada Familia.
Construction on the church began in 1882 and Antoni Gaudí became involved in 1883. At the time of Gaudí's death in 1926 less than a quarter of the church was completed. In 2010 the halfway point for construction was reached with many of the most difficult aspects of the church's design yet to be attempted.
There are three sides to the church, the Glory side, the Passion side, and the Nativity side.
We never saw the Glory side; it is covered in construction things.
The Passion side.
The Nativity side.
The bottom part of the Nativity side.
A close up of the Nativity for which the Nativity side is named.
A model of what the completed church should look like.
Some of the details on the Nativity side:
Note about photos from inside the church - The light coming through the stained glass windows was beautiful. I tried to get the most color out of the photos that I could which makes it look like the church is very dark. I loved the stained glass windows so I took a lot of photos of them. The church is not actually very dark. It is quite light and airy. It is beautiful.
This is the ceiling.
Dan liked the way the light reflected off the organ pipes.
There is a museum in the basement about the construction of the church.
A model of the what the finished Nave would look like.
Models of all the catenary arches. Dan was not so sure about this working.
Early model #1.
Early model #2.
Early model #3.
Early model #4. I think this is the one Gaudí decided on.
The newer parts added on to the original Gaudí parts.
We were going to go up in the Passion side towers, but were a bit early for our allotted time. I took artsy photos of the doors while we waited.
The reason it is the Passion side. I personally find this slightly terrifying.
You cannot climb the towers you have to take an elevator up. I was sad about this, Dan was not.
Barcelona and the sea.
The interior of the tower.
More Barcelona.
Orange and.....Bean finials? There were a bunch of these on top of the church. All different foods.
I think...these are some saints or the Holy Family or.....statues of people.
Artsy photo of the stairs on the way down.
Random weird door!
Leaving the Passion side.
People selling knickknacks on the sidewalk. I liked the earring umbrella.
We jumped back on a bus which was hissing quite a lot. Shortly after sitting down we were told to disembark as that bus wasn't going to be taking people anywhere. It was broken. So we got on the next bus and got off at the Park Guell stop. We then hiked up the hill to get to the park.
It was also designed by Gaudí, but to get to the really interesting bits by him you have to pay to get in. There was a line and we were both hot and tired. Did I mention it was around 40ºC (104º F)? Because it was. And we had both been melting all day.
Knobbly bits of the free park.
We sat here for a few minutes and then decided we should probably head home.
Some of the more fun bits of Park Guell:
We caught a taxi back to our parking spot as taking the bus would have been at least 90 minutes.
The taxi was around 15 minutes.
This is the Torre Agbar. I think it looks a lot like London's Gherkin.
Nothing exciting happened on the way home.
This concludes our adventure for today.
