barcelona day 2

I started my day bright and early so I could pack everything into the only full day I had on my Barcelona schedule.  I had a ticket to enter the Sagrada Familia at 9:00, and I left my hotel around 8:30 to walk there.  I started right on schedule, and really I stayed on my schedule throughout the entire day!  At one point, I was leaving one of the Gaudi houses and checked the time, and I realized that I was following my itinerary to the minute.  I never felt rushed to see anything or to get to the next place.

Pro solo travel tip: always ask the Asians or the pre-teen girls to take your picture.

la sagrada familia

La Sagrada Familia was my highlight of Barcelona.  I’ve obviously been spoiled with the size and beauty of the Sevilla Catedral, but La Sagrada Familia does not disappoint.  I actually got chills when I was walking towards it and began to see it peeking above other buildings.  There is something to be said about how elaborately the Spanish Catholics do things- nothing is compromised or skipped over to show glory to God.   

La Sagrada Familia is a basilica/Roman Catholic church designed by Antonio Gaudi.  Gaudi took over the design and construction in 1883, and the church is still not complete.  It’s a UNESCO world heritage site and worldwide-known tourist destination.  The design combines Gothic and modernist styles, and Gaudi loved to include natural elements, so you can see that throughout the church, too.  For example, the columns in the main sanctuary are designed to look like trees.  My favorite part of the church has to be the stained glass windows.  Gaudi loved to utilize and play with light, and the windows throughout are amazing- and can actually be somewhat captured in a picture!

La Sagrada Familia- expected to be finished with construction around 2026

park güell

Park Güell is another one of Antonio Gaudi’s works.  The Güell family was a famous bourgeoisie family in Barcelona when the city was growing.  In the span of 10-20 years, the city literally doubled in size of inhabitants, and Park Güell was designed by Gaudi and commissioned by one of the Güells to be basically a high-class neighborhood out and away from the dirtiness, noise, and lower class people at the center of the city.  The park was actually considered to be a “failure” because only two of the houses Gaudi designed were built.  It was then turned into a public park, but now the most well-known sites of the park are considered the “monumental zone” and requires a paid admission to enter.  I paid for entry and a guided tour in Spanish! (it was fun extra information- actually worth for just 7 euros).  I didn’t allow much time to explore in the park outside of the tour because my day was so full, but outside of the monumental zone, it’s mostly just a regular public park with gardens and trails.

palau güell

Palau Güell, or Guell Palace, was the very first home that Antonio Gaudi designed.  The Guell family, again, commissioned him to build this home in the middle of the up and coming neighborhood in the center of Barcelona.  One quote from the audio-guide that I used while walking through the house said that Gaudi’s professor wrote on his diploma when he graduated that he was either a “genius or a madman.”  Everything he designed was natural and symbolic but also very functional and ergonomic.  No detail is left out, and there is a purpose and function from each piece of furniture to the way handles on door knobs are shaped. 

other sites…

I had heard all about walking on Las Ramblas, which is basically an iconic Barcelona street like Gran Via in Madrid or Times Square in NYC.  It’s a beautiful area, but it’s also a tourist trap and a hub for pickpockets.  I felt on edge the whole time I was walking just because I’d heard so many people mention that haha, but really I think it’s fine during the day.  I also saw the Arc de Triomf.      

la pedrera/casa milá

This is another “Gaudi house” that was commissioned by Pere Milá, another wealthy Catalonian.  He, like many of the other super wealthy people living in Barcelona, was an Indiano, meaning that he was an explorer to the Americas and gained his wealth from those expeditions.  This building was designed as an apartment, and people are still actually living there now.  The public tour is very limited because of the private homes.  One of the highlights is the roof. The roof is uneven and “hilly” because of the way he designed the interior of the building.  He used arches to support the building so that no wall was load-bearing; he wanted tenants to be able to modify their apartment space as they desired.  Nothing that Gaudi created has straight lines- he often didn’t have a plan for things he built, but he had an innate skill with geometry and used math and his intelligence to design things that we now have elaborate computer programs for.  A lot of the Gaudi design and architecture is weird, even now.  At the time, he received even more critique for his unusual strategies, which is how the house got its nickname of "la pedrera," meaning "stone quarry."     

*All of the Gaudi houses are over-priced for what you see and what you get- even student admission was over 10 euros for each of them, individually.  I expected them to be more of “museums” and better decorated to the period, but they’re basically empty, just restored and well kept.  If I were to go to Barcelona again, I’d pick Casa Batlló (see in a later post).  They are worth at least walking by to see from the outside.