Spain Day Three

We headed up to Barcelona for the day. The first stop was at the Sagrada Familia, a large Roman Catholic Church designed by Antoni Gaudi. Construction began in 1882, although Gaudi passed away in 1926 the church has continued to be constructed using Gaudi's gothic architectual ideas. Less than a quarter of the project was complete at Gaudi's death. The construction was interruped during the Spanish War and started back up in the 1950's. It passed the halfway point in 2010. The anticipated completion date is 2026, the centenial of Gaudi'a death. We were very happy that we did not pass up the opportunity to tour this church. The architecture was breathtaking and almost overwhelming. There was amazing detail throughout the inside and exterior. This is a must see for anyone remotely interested in architecture. The interior is supposed to look like you are walking through a forest and it really does resemble that. It was interesting to learn that Gaudi took his inspiration from nature. Gaudi said that only men drew straight lines – God and nature much preferred curves. So he took concrete and masonry and made it flow, swirl, cascade and curve in fairytale forms that seem born out of the imagination of a highly creative child playing with plasticine. After our visit to Sagrada Familia, we took the tube to La Ramblas, a tree-lined street full of shops and restaurants very popular to tourists visiting Barcelona. I had my first Spanish Hot Chocolate there. If you have never experienced one of the thick hot chocolate that tastes like hot pudding, you absolutely must. It is so very good and even better if you dip a churro (tastes like a funnel cake in the shape of a stick) into it. The kids experienced putting money into a bucket next to what looked like a statue of a man riding a bicycle and had quite a fright when the man started peddling. They thought it was hilarious and yet very cruel that we knew he was real and didn't warn them. We went to visit one of Gaudi's other works, Casa Batllo. Gaudi renovated this building in 1904 and added a bone shaped skeleton-like exterior. The photos online and in the brochures made this building look a lot more spectacular than we felt it was in person. So after being a little disappointed in this building, we went back to La Ramblas to eat ice cream, shop, and have dinner. Afterwards we headed back on the road for a 2 hour drive back to the villa. When we exited the motorway just a few short minutes from the villa, we were randomly picked to be pulled over by the Spanish Policia. Aaron, using his awesome 4 years of Spanish education, rolled down the window and said "Hola". The police officer looked in the back seat only to see two very passed out children and just waved us on.