TripAdvisor said go early to Sagrada Familia so I booked the earliest entrance at 9.00. We walked about 200 metres from our apartment to the basilica. We watched as huge cranes lowered a work platform and entered with the other early risers.
The audio guide, as at Casa Batllo yesterday, was excellent.
We began at Gaudi’s only completed entrance, the Nativity facade. I can’t explain why but looking at the soaring towers and the intricate carvings I was overcome. The only other time this has happened to me was when I saw Michelangelo’s Pieta in 2013. Epiphanies are not my thing. My beliefs have probably more in common with the republicans of the Spanish civil war who damaged this place than Gaudi. Nevertheless, I cried, so there you go.
Gaudi and friends seemed to be as obsessed by little things as the grand scheme. From the sculptures out front to the lizards in the sculpted foliage of the portal, everything was captivating.
Inside was, if possible, more sublime.
The Passion Facade was equally powerful, though in a completely different style.
I decided I’d like to take the lift up one of the towers. I went for the views but the real joy was seeing the ongoing construction. Then I walked down the 10 stories or so. Even the stairs were fascinating.
The next project was to walk for 10 minutes to a bus stop which would take us to Parc Guell. We paused for a final look back.
Lyn spotted a great cafe/bakery and we sat and refuelled. The walk passed the usual Barcelona apartment buildings. Barcelona is a city of mostly beautiful apartment blocks which are usually festooned with various Catalan flags and slogans.
We just missed a bus and the wait for the next was about 35 minutes. We walked instead, a bad decision because the walk was all uphill, though the neighbourhood was very high end and Lyn developed birdbath envy.
Parc Guell was a huge letdown. It was no doubt a beautiful place in its way but Mondays are when museums are closed and this was a beautiful day. Barcelona’s tourists and locals had booked out the ticketed area for the entire day, while the rest of the park was crammed with the unlucky multitudes. There was dust and crowds and an enormous queue for the loos. We took a couple of photos and gave up.
We both came to the reluctant conclusion that Gaudi and friends had a reverence for nature that elevated projects like Casa Batllo or Sagrada Familia but at Parc Guell it was all a bit twee. I’m sure many will disagree. Our bus ride back was a tragicomedy of missed stops. We usually do this sort of thing well, though not always.
We had a late lunch and a siesta. Our afternoon excursion was less ambitious. We caught a bus back to the Barri Gotic, bought some tickets for a tour tomorrow, and visited Barcelona’s 14th Century gothic cathedral. There were innumerable chapels and a cloister with live geese. I later discovered why. The cathedral is sacred to the local St Eulalia, a 13 year old girl who was martyred by the Romans very imaginatively. (Look it up. Why should I do all the work?) There is one goose for each year of her (probably apocryphal) life.
The little bonus was the museum in the cloisters. Lyn was so taken aback by the jewelled holy stuff that she had to ask the attendant if it was real. “Si!” The rampant anticlericalism of the Spanish Civil War Republicans began to drift into perspective. Serendipitously, the museum was temporarily housing an exhibition of Durer’s series of engravings of the life of the Virgin Mary.
We went outside to find the cathedral square transformed. A temporary stage, sound system, portaloos and a market had appeared. Immediately, a Roma concert began complete with some flamenco. The first singers, dancers and guitarists were great. Then a woman ‘of a certain age’ began to sing very badly and loudly. We fled to the bus at Placa Catalunya.
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