A Relaxed Wednesday in Barcelona

Wednesday we took off early again for an appointed 9:00 am entry to one of the more famous landmarks in Barcelona; the Sagrada Famila. This is a church that has been under construction for at least 100 years and isn't finished. It's another building largely designed by local architect Gaudi, and it's actually quite interesting. The exterior is extremely detailed with scenes from Christ's birth, life, and death; each one being represented on a different side of the building. The interior is also interesting as the traditional buttressed ceilings are absent and the architect was able to find a way to keep them much more open to allow light to stream in from above. All in all, an unusual and interesting place. After touring the church we had tickets to t our one of the towers which loom over the neighborhood. A short elevator ride up, some amazing views, and then a long winding walk down the towers followed.





























Next, a ten minute walk up hill on Avenue of Gaudi to see another of the famous architect's calibrations. This time a hospital (Sant Pau Recinte Modernista) which we did not enter. It was still very interesting and much prettier than some of his other works (see the ille de discord neighborhood from our earlier post).





From there we were largely done with the day so we tried some local tapas near our hotel in the Eixample neighborhood; literally an example neighborhood for how the rest should be built.








Finally we went to the hotel's rooftop pool for a little relaxing.

We ended the night out in another section of the neighborhood to do the nightly bar & food crawl. This time we started with a craft beer shop, headed to another Irish pub for drinks and snacks, and finally revisited the Italian restaurant we found to be so good on Sunday.









Thursday will be a journey up Montserrat which is a natural landmark that may be among the most unique, at least in Europe.

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Location:Barcelona, Spain