We got on the Hop on-Hop Off tour bus from Plaza Catalunya to get to La Sagrada Familia (no. 5 on TripAdvisor's recent Traveler's Choice list of Top 25 Landmarks of the World!)
Even if you see all the pictures, nothing compares to standing in front of Antoni Gaudi's masterpiece (still incomplete...decades later)
We stepped off the bus and our mouths were just hanging open the whole time. It is an impressive Catalan Modernist building with all the ceramic, carpentry, spots of bright colour and sculptures and gorgeous stonework on the outside. (all unedited photos, also I'm learning the setting on my camera ok. Still a newbie but I'm obsessed. Obviously...)
The Nativity
Directly above baby Jesus, Mary and Joseph you'll see the tree of life. It looks like a real life tree!
THEN YOU STEP INSIDE
The whole building is like a living, breathing thing. Trees instead columns stretch to the ceiling which is covered in stone vegetation. Gaudi was inspired by three passions: architecture, nature and religion.
An interesting thing I read about him: he preferred to create 3-D models of his designs and rarely drew any plans, molding the details as it came to him. He followed the organic forms found in nature.
And can we just talk about the stained glass for a minute?
There is so much light allowed to flow through this giant main room that the feeling is unlike any other cathedral/abbey/basilica that I have ever visited.
Colours and light refracted everywhere.
I'm a stained glass lover. Taylor didn't even get mad about the dozens of photos I took. :)
He thought of every single detail, down to the thickness of the glass; varying the thickness to control the light's intensity.
It's not hard to see why it is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, 5th on the World's Top Landmarks. I see a Gaudi-specific trip in our future....
