Today is ANZAC Day and a day that we always remember. We will be in spirit with all the diggers.
Answer to our tram riddle.
No, the rack is not for prams or bicycles or as Fras suggested, a snowplow. It was used by the driver who had a quick release strap that would drop the front of the rack down to scoop up any unlucky person who happened to get in front of the tram. We did wonder how many people actually got hurt when the contraption was dropped and probably took them out.
So today was our Gaudi day and there are going to be a lot of pictures that we will post. Our first impressions of the Sagrada Familia from the outside were not particularly positive.
Yes, it was big, but it was ugly. In fact, we thought he had been on a bad acid trip when he designed it. Our expectations for the inside were not high at this point.
We had booked for a guided tour (in English this time🤪) and the guide was very good. Above is the mock up of the cathedral which will have the main spire finished in 2026. The significance of 2026 is that it will be 100 years since the death of Gaudi. Here is just an aside – Gaudi died at the age of 73 because he was taken out by a tram……..bit of a theme going on here. The cathedral was started in 1882 and will be completed in 2033 – another significant date – it will be 2,000 years since the death/rebirth of Christ.
The inside of the cathedral is so different from the outside. It is very simple with none of those side chambers you see in the big cathedrals and churches around the world (Di calls them the corporate boxes).
It is not cluttered!
It is not dark and depressing! It has clean lines and refreshing.
You could almost think it is an ornate municipal building rather than a church. We both really liked it!!! The organ was playing, and the acoustics were very good. To be there with a choir also singing would be magical.
We will give the guy 10/10 for the inside.
We also paid to catch the lift up the Passion Tower and then walk down the narrow winding staircase.
When completed there will be 18 towers in total of which 13 are now done.
We got a really good view of Barcelona from the Passion Tower and it was just a bit on the windy side. Today is only a high of +17c which is our coolest day on this holiday.
Some of the outside is just plain weird and there is a lot of symbolism that goes with it. The Dan Brown book “Origin” was set around locations in Spain which included the Sagrada Familia.
There was a part in the book where some baddie fell down the middle of the stairwell.
What was most disconcerting was that there was no handrail on the inside of the stairwell, and this was certainly freaking some people out as you had to come down the stairs as you were not allowed down the lift.
After negotiating our way out, we then went in search of the metro as we had booked at slot into the Park Guell which was another one of Gaudi’s “masterpieces”.
Oh god, this place was downright awful!
He was on some really serious shit when he came up with this idea for a garden.
It looked like clumps of 💩 all joined together and built by someone with two opposing thumbs.
What was he thinking.
It really put a dampener on our mood.
The more we walked around the worse it got.
We decided to hightail it out of the Parc as we were becoming downright miserable.
His next creation we saw was the Casa Mila which he built for a private client…….our reaction to this wasn’t particularly positive either.
Then to the final bit of Gaudi work, Casa Batllo. According to Wikipedia it is considered one of his masterpieces…..REEAAALLLY! Gaudi had officially turned gaudy. The inside of the Sagrada Familia was just stunning but his other works we found weird, scary and depressing.
Following dinner at our favourite little restaurant called K.ersol (play on words) we wandered back towards the Sagrada Familia to see what it looked like at night. We had been told they light it up and as we arrived at 9.00pm the lights came on and the bells tolled.
Well worth doing those extra couple of thousand steps to go and see it.
New record today – 21,091 – and the feet are killing!,
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