Sagrada Familia – Gaudi’s Holy Family Church 10/18/2014
We didn’t out of the B&B until late morning 11:00 am or so.
We walked passed ST Paul’s Hospital complex which looked like it contained at University, a major Art Museum as well as a hospital. We only got lost a couple of times. We were glad to have our Ipad Google Maps to show us where we were and that we went the wrong direction again. It was about a 45 minute walk.
Walk to Sagrada Familia
When we got near this Holy Family Church, there was a Jazz Festival in process on the street in front of the Church. We listened for a while before getting in line for tickets. There were no tickets left for the Towers so we got a general admission ticket for 3:45 PM. We went to the McDonald’s across the street for lunch. While we were there, we made a 6:30 PM reservation to go to Gaudi’s Parc Guell.
Sagrada Familia
We entered the Holy Family Church of Sagrada Familia at 3:45 PM.
To say we were impressed is an understatement. As Milly told me “Now I know where the term Gaudy came from”!
After visiting all the Ancient Churches in Rome, Greece, Istanbul and Naples, this was modern, different and very differently inspiring. This was the capstone Church of our trip – no doubt about it.
We are so grateful to Sherwin Goerlitz who first suggested we go to Barcelona to see this Church and to see Gaudi’s other works. Our daughter Kim also loved Barcelona and confirmed Sherwin’s suggestion. We came, we see and we love!
Another Taste of Gaudi – Park Guell
After leaving the Sagrada Familia, we walked using our Ipad Google Maps to guide us through the streets to Park Guell. This park was designed by Gaudi for his friend Guell. It was designed to be one of the first planned housing communities for the rich. It is quite an impressive design. We saw how Gaudi fashioned trees of rock to hold up walk ways.
Italian Taste in Barcelona
Our landlord had suggested we go to this italian restaurant up the street. We arrived about 9 PM, a little early for dinner in Spain. No one spoke english and again no menu with english in it. We forgot out Ipad with its translation App tht we could have used.
The staff there were wonderful. They assigned someone to help us with selections as best they could. We must have had 4 people wait on us. The chief even came out to see how we liked our meal. Milly had an Sir Lanka Clam dish that was excellent. Fred had roast beef that was good as well as some spaghetti that was excellent, We shared dishes. We polished off bottles of red and white house wine.
We noticed that no one else had come in. We were there only customers. We actually had a broken english conversation about how this group was trying to get the restaurant established in this area.