Day 10

 This morning we got up and got a taxi to the La Sagrada Familia for our tour. We grabbed breakkie once we arrived and waited for the tour group to meet at 8:50.

Once we were all assembled our tour begun. La Sagrada Familia is the largest Catholic Church in the world. The outside was begun back in 1852 by architect Antoni Gaudi. The outside has sculptures of Jesus, Mary and Joseph and shoes the nativity scene. The sculptures are all real moulds of people so they look very lifelike. The doors are covered in bronze leaves and is the scene of the garden of eden. It is very clear when Gaudi completed his work and where other architects took over after his death. In particular one architect was Japanese and therefore all the angels he designed were Asian. 

Gaudi dedicated his whole life the the work and died at 72 when he was walking to mass and was hit by a tram. He left all his plans to be taken over as he knew he would never see the finish of the church. When he was asked by people when he would finish, he would respond “my client is not in a rush, he has all the time in the world” meaning he was building it for god. It is quite clear the difference between attention to detail from Gaudi compared to the modern day works which are a lot less grand. The construction is all funded by donations and ticket sales and is expected to be finished on the 150yr anniversary of the start which is 2032.

Inside the church, the windows are all stained glass mosaics which are incredible. The side windows are laid out to show a day, starting from a sunrise, to midday, to sunset and then to night time. The inside is also meant to depict a forest, so the roof and pillars are all trees and canopy’s. It was a very impressive church but still has plenty more work to be done! 

Once our tour finished, we climbed the tour of the church spire. It was very high up! And the stair case on the way down was very tight. 

We then jumped onto the hop on hop off city bus. We passed the Arc de Triomf and hopped off at Casa Batllo which is a UNESCO site. It is a house designed by Gaudi and is also known as the house of bones. 

We then had tapas for lunch and then jumped back on the bus. The next stop was Montjuic Cable Cart. We took a cable cart to the top of Montjuïc where there is the castle de Montjuic which is now a museum. In our cable cart we had another Australian who is studying medicine and has just finished a term in Malta and is now travelling for a week before heading back to Sydney. The view over the city was incredible. Barcelona is a huge city, and everything is very spread out so we have been using the city bus a lot as it’s 45min walks between each sight. 

We then headed back down on the bus and hopped off at the water front to stroll through the market. We then jumped back on the bus and took the loop around to the closest point to our hotel which is 10mins away. By this time it was 5pm. So we showered and then headed to dinner. Barnaby had paella but wasn’t as impressed as he was hoping. 

Tomorrow we have a tour booked of Gaudis Park Güell which I am really looking forward to! 


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Day 11

 This morning we caught a taxi to Park de Güell. Our tour began at 10. We wandered the gardens and viewed all the beautiful art/sculptures and houses. Gaudí built one house as a show house when he first began the gardens with the goal to create a neighbourhood that was within nature. However, because at the time Barcelona city was 20mins away, no one bought the houses/plans. He then left the gardens to the city of Barcelona. Prior to his death, he had built many areas for the “town” including a market place, meeting areas and the house. Gaudí designed his artworks/infrastructure to blend into nature so most fences, pillars and walls look like trees or caves. He signed the meeting area so that water would drain through the sand and funnel into pillars to be collected for drinking water.  The city now reaches the park and surrounds it but the park remains the same.  After the tour we had breakfast and then jumped onto the bus. We did the blue loop on the bus seeing the rest...
Read more

Day 1

 We have finally arrived in Switzerland after a very long night/day. The first 14hr leg was smooth, landing slightly early in Dubai. Dubai was huge! The airport had buses and trains through it between terminals. We had 2hrs from landing to taking off again. And the bus from terminal A to C was 40mins. We also had to go through 3 security checks even though we were in the same airport. Once off the bus we only waited 10mins before boarding the final leg. Thankfully we had paid for extra legroom. So we were right in the first row. However, being 8am local time meant that we were due to leave at the busiest time for the airport. This meant we had to wait until we could use the runway which in the end was nearly 2hrs later… you’d think they would just book the departure to be 2hrs later if they know 8am is busy. I slept most of the way but barnaby watched movies and took advantage of the free tea and juices every hour.  It was very interesting to see Dubai from the air. Their padd...
Read more

Day 15

 This morning we slept in, not getting up until 8:30. Our room is right on the Main Street but has no sound proofing and being a Friday night here, it was very loud most of the night until 6am…  We then packed up and met Corinna to drop our bags in a luggage storage. We then met Belle at the food market and all had an early lunch. Barnabys version was salami platter, I had chicken sliders, Corinna had a burger and belle waited until later to eat as she had a migraine. We then wandered down to the cathedral and walked through it. We then headed to the royal gardens for a wander. We ended up sitting in the gardens for an hour to relax.  We then headed back into the town for an afternoon snack. After that we strolled the shops and grabbed our luggage back out. Corinna, Barnaby and I then grabbed a taxi to the airport and said our goodbyes to Belle.  It was a very low key day but much needed. It was 31 in Madrid today and very busy as it’s the weekend so people from all ...
Read more