Where We Have Been - Europe - Spain

We arrived into Barcelona via train from Nice late in the evening and struggled to get a taxi from the train station to our accommodation, which we had arranged on short notice, as we were day earlier arriving than we had originally planned. 

While we spent time exploring Barcelona including Las Ramblas where we had a less than inspiring dinner the main reason we chose to visit was that Carolyn wanted to experience first-hand the architecture of Antoni Gaudí.

The first stop on our exploration of the Gaudi wonders was Casa Batlló a house which Gaudi redesigned. It is a mass of curves and shapes and has to be seen to be truly appreciated.

Then it was on to see what has to be Gaudi’s masterpiece, the stunning Basilica de la Sagrada Familia (Sagrada Família), which also encompasses Gaudi’s tomb. Gaudi designed it in the late 1800’s with construction commencing in 1882 and completion of the works is anticipated to be in 2034.

Strangely enough it was eventually consecrated as a catholic church in 2010 by Pope Benedict XVI, the very Pope who was elected while we were sitting in St. Peter’s Square.

It is impossible to do justice to this gothic wonder and you would need to literally spend days studying it to appreciate all the fine detail. We found it amusing when we noticed that some of the small statues appeared very much like Star Wars Stormtroopers, maybe a certain director visited and was influenced?