The Sagrada Familia, oh how we adored thee. We started our adventures in Barcelona with a walking tour of Gaudi's most famous works and our tour guide asked us: Genius or Madman? (Warning, you may want to make a cup of tea and get a biscuit, this is quite a photo heavy post, sorry!)
Antoni Gaudi (1852-1926) was a Spanish Catalan architect and figurehead of Catalan Modernism. His architecture reflected his passions of architecture, nature and religion. (Wikipedia)
He created/modified some of the most amazing buildings, using nature as a basis for everything he designed. The Sagrada Familia was his masterpiece, and is still not finished nearly 100 years after his death, even though he spent the last 12 years of his life exclusively working on it.
We spent nearly 5 hours to wander around. It's really funny, we meant to spend a couple of hours max (including the tower tour) but it just sucked us in.
The Passion Façade:
The Nativity Façade
Up the on the bridge between the Nativity Facade towers:
Park Güell: (great views over Barcelona, and fantastic to take a picnic to)
Personally, I think he was both a genius and a madman, in order to be great you have to think outside the box.
Hint: book your entry tickets online in advance - the entry queues are phenomenal otherwise, and book your tower tour when enter the site!
Lovely pictures, I went maybe 15 years ago and it was nowhere near as done as it is now, although I think it's still got another ten years or so to go (from memory), I almost want to wait until it's finished to go again so that I can be utterly wowed by it.
ReplyDeleteI love Parc Guell! Although luckily, I was there right before they started charging entrance fees into the park. x
ReplyDeleteIt does look lovely - that staircase is perfect! I can imagine you would be absolutely wowed by that.
ReplyDeleteyeah, we didn't know about the tickets in advance thing, and the line was too long for us to visit when we went. We will make it in eventually, I love seeing peoples pictures. Parc Guell was great though!
ReplyDeleteI can see how it took so long to explore with all of those stunning details.
ReplyDeleteI agree, Gaudi must be part genuis, part madman. And the Sagrada Familia is just an amazing work of art, I love how you can see the difference between the work done when he was alive and then after his death, such a contrast.
ReplyDeleteI'd love to see this someday, but at this point I might as well wait another 10-20 years and see it in completion! :) We're going to Spain this summer, but I wanted to stay far away from Barcelona, so we're going to the Andalusia region down south. I'm so excited!
ReplyDeleteI'm posting about this next. I loved La Sagrada Familia but it's good to see your pictures because unfortunately, my family that was visiting me didnt' want to wait in the line to go inside. And I also wanted to go to the Park Guell but they didn't want to walk that far. Booo lol.
ReplyDeleteI've seen the outside of La Sagrada Familia but never the inside. It looks amazing. I think I need to book another trip to Barcelona as soon as possible.
ReplyDeleteGo, go go go. Book those flights! I would fly back to Barcelona to visit the Sagrada Familia again alone.
ReplyDeleteIt is simply divine, and worth a long weekend to Barcelona alone!
ReplyDeleteAww, that's lame - it's well worth a wander! Next time just book your Sagrada Familia tickets online the queue is much better - they have no excuse then!
ReplyDeleteI think it's wonderful to see how it's going - the process almost as interesting as the quirky architecture.
ReplyDeleteIncredible isn't it - and he didn't really leave a great deal of detailed guidance.
ReplyDeleteI could honestly have spent more time too.
ReplyDeleteParc Guell was cute - though apparently they've started charging entry!
ReplyDeleteIt was breath taking!
ReplyDeleteIt's something so special. Ironic when Gaudi was touted as a crazy madman.
ReplyDeleteI want to go again in 5 years, then 10 years once finished - what a place!
ReplyDeleteI've heard that, must be to pay for the escalators up the hill :)
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