Barcelona

We flew to Barcelona from Prague. We grabbed a taxi to our apartment for the next few nights and went out of an evening walk. We went to the Plaza del Sol (Spanish for Plaza of the Sun) and had some tapas for dinner. Spain is super warm and it is a nice change from England and Germany. We are finally able to wear the summer clothes that we have been hauling for so long. After dinner, it was straight to bed as we had a busy day planned for the next day.

The next morning we went to see La Sagrada Familia. Sagrada Familia is a massive church being built in the heart of town. It was started in 1882 and for a while, its architect was Antoni Gaudi who is well known in many parts of Spain for his complex architecture including the Casa Batllo (which we also saw on this day). For 137 years they have been building it and yet still it is not finished. It is going to be 560 feet tall and have 18 spires of which 8 are already built. Inside there are bright windows of stained glass. On one side the glass is mainly cool colors and on the other, they are hotter colors. The side with the warmer colors is meant to represent summer and is decorated with summer fruits and the cooler colors are meant to represent winter and have winter fruits on them. Gaudi died part way through the building and is buried in the crypt of the cathedral. There are 3 main sides of the building that are all decorated to look like scenes from the Bible. It can hold 9000 people and completion of the main structure is expected in 2026 through the decorations will be finished about 10 years later. Part of what has taken so long is funding. It is paid for by donations so they only have funding if people donate to them. Another difficulty was that at one point revolutionists broke into Gaudi’s office after he had died and broke the master model apart so they had to spend lots of time putting it back together before work could continue. One of the more modern hurtles is that a high-speed train that passes under the church and has caused concern for the stability of the structure. We spent a few hours there and then went to see Casa Batllo. After this, we wandered in the city until we went home.

The next morning we walked to the beach. We decided to walk there as it was not very far. On our way, we walked past a statue of Christopher Columbus you could go up but after reading the description of it online and seeing that the trip up was not for the faint of heart as the ledge at the top was very narrow and high.

While in Barcelona we also visited a huge market. They had everything from fruits and spices to meats and fish. I even got to try ostrich sausage (I do not recommend it). We saw massive buckets of Saffron and other expensive spices at home that are super cheap here. The ham legs were just creepy.

Our time in Barcelona was very fun and I loved it. Next on to a new country… Andorra!