So, I am beginning to feel a little silly knowing that I had this post in my drafts for over a year now because it’s a bit special! Remember when I went to Barcelona for my 30th? Of course we made sure to visit one of the most famous cathedrals in the world, Gaudi’s Sagrada Familia.
The building has been under construction since 1882 and there’s no sign of it being finished any time soon. It’s fascinating and also a bit controversial because the restoration/building work is based on reconstructed versions of the designs which were destroyed in a fire. So who knows how close this design is to what Gaudi had originally intended?
The Sagrada Familia is an insane cathedral and nothing like any building I’ve experienced before. My friends who had visited before as kids, couldn’t believe how much it had changed. As you walk in, there’s definitely a moment of awe, where you just take in the sheer height of the canopy of pillars and kaleidoscope of colours from the stained glass. My photos don’t do the place justice, it’s incredible and extremely surreal.
The colours are gorgeous and what struck us, was the uniqueness of the stained glass. The glass doesn’t feature any religious scenes and appear very abstract. The colours flood the cathedral with the most magical light. It’s pretty hard to explain but it was utterly beautiful and different every time you look around. There’s always quite a queue to enter the cathedral but we pre-booked our tickets online the night before, which was really handy. We purchased the basic entry tickets but for a little more, you can enter various other parts of the cathedral which is great if you want to explore the towers and crypts.
We were lucky enough that our Air BnB was close to the Sagrada Familia so on the last night, we decided to take one last look at the Cathedral. I’m really glad we did – it’s the eeriest looking building at night. In my post about Casa Batllo, I mentioned the creepiness of Gaudi’s work and this is a prime example. All the shadows and sheer size of the cathedral makes it quite a creepy building indeed.
Barcelona is such a brilliant city and it’s definitely somewhere I wouldn’t mind returning to. It’s a really chilled out and creative city with some pretty amazing architecture and grand boulevards. I’d love to go back and explore the food scene a bit more and visit the art galleries.
The main purpose of the trip was to escape the UK and celebrate my 30th. In other words, do something super fun so that I wouldn’t have to deal with any hang ups with turning 30 and so naturally Barcelona is filled with some pretty awesome memories. Oh and regarding hang ups turning 30, I’m 31 now and it’s not so bad at all…
