Sagrada Familia

 I ended up waking up a little later than hoped for on my first full day in Barcelona. I had planned to have breakfast with Edie before she had to run to some appointments. Luckily, she woke me up and after rushing to get ready, we walked a short distance to Billy Brunch, which is a local place that apparently has become really popular after they discovered it a few years ago.

I had a yummy spinach kale omelet (good thing I chose the veggie version because they became few and far between in following days). After Edie took off, I went back to the apartment and relaxed until it was time to walk over to the Sagrada Familia for the tour I had purchased from home.

I had opted for the guided tour as well as tower access. It was already very hot so we waited in the shade for our guide at the Gaudi facade. She ended up being a terrific guide, providing a lot of detail about the architecture as well as the religious iconography. We started on the Gaudi facade which represents the birth of Chist. then we walked inside and as we did so, the organist was playing (apparently to dust out the pipes) and the music completely filled the beautiful space with such beautiful sound that I got choked up and almost cried in awe. 

The last time I was here (1997, shortly after Princess Diana had died), there was no roof and the building was a mere shell, it was hard to visualize how the two facades were going to come together. Now it's a beautiful light filled space with soaring ceilings and the most beautiful stained glass I've ever seen.

After the tour, I headed for the Gaudi towers. They now have elevators to go up, although you still need to take the stairs down. I don't recall there being elevators back in '97.

The view is remarkable, but you can also see the scaffolding on the parts of the cathedral that are still under construction. The original plan was for the church to be completed in 2026, 100 years after the death of Gaudi, but the pandemic has messed with that plan. they had just topped off one of the spires.

The large central spire is still to be completed and the front facade still needs to be completed (in fact there is a building in the way of the front facade that needs to be demo'd).

After the Sagrada, I stopped at a small cafe for a quick sandwich (bocadillo) for lunch before continuing to Casa Batllo. This house is the other Gaudi masterpiece (more so that Casa Mila). The tour is an audio guide with some 'woo woo' music and I would've enjoyed a bit less of that and a sprightlier pace, but the house itself is spectacular.

There are so many beautiful details in the house, the back deck and roof. Every surface was covered in some decorative detail from the walls, ceiling, floors, light fixtures and tile work. The roof has the prominent dragon spine and sword hilt easily visible.

At the end of the tour there is a room lined with video screens and a small film with some interesting visual motion and graphic effects, slightly dizzying but short. It was an interesting way to end the tour. The gift shop was quite extensive and had a lot of great stuff, but I stuck to picking up a new fan for myself, which would end up being well used throughout the rest of my trip, and a small stained glass candle holder.

After the house, I found the hop-on hop-off bus stop and took the route that went by the water front. It passed the Columbus column, the Olympic torch and several interesting art works.

Later in the evening, Edie & the girls and I went to a local place that served Turkish food with seating on the sidewalk. My kofte was basically meatballs (they did call it albondigas so I shouldn't have been surprised), but we also followed up the meal with helados at Obrador DelaCream, which had a decent line and custom flavours that were already running out.