The Wonder of Light

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Geo: 41.3879, 2.16992

I don't think any of us were truly ready to begin living Spanish hours, as we were a rather somber crowd during breakfast this morning. It has been a very short night, and we already knew it would be another hot and humid day. Spain was still in the midst of an historic heatwave. Temps in Barcelona were high, but southern Spain was in worse shape, with temps nearing 110 degrees Fahrenheit.

Central to K's nearly three-decade-long desire to get to Barcelona was to visit the famous Gaudi-designed cathedral, Sagrada Familia. Already declared a UNESCO World Heritage site (anyone counting?), though it remains under construction after more than 130 years. The cathedral is dedicated to the Holy Family, and is a uniquely Gaudi combination of Gothic and Art Nouveau styles. It is Barcelona's top attraction, and understandably so. With our advance planning, we were able to pre-book tickets to visit. Tickets are required, with a small number reserved each day for folks who choose to queue, but hundreds if not thousands of people are turned away each day. With the cathedral infamous for its crowds, we booked entrance within the first group of the day, at 9:00am, when the doors officially open. We thought it would give us a minor jump on the crowds, and allow us to see more. Wanting to make sure we were in place in time, we got on the Metro and arrived by 8:30am, right when they opened the waiting section, so we were near the front of the line of people with 9:00am tickets. As soon as the gates opened, we lined up again for an audio guide, which allowed us all to work our own way around the complex, at our own pace, and listen to an outstanding narration of all there is to see. Each of us donned the earphones and split up, agreeing to meet in an hour, when we had timed entrances to gain admittance to the church's towers.

As I wrote on Facebook at the time, this was clearly the most moving church I have visited in my life. While the outside architecture is overwhelming, and personally not to my taste (it is almost an assault on the senses, with so much detail, which is frankly hard to appreciate given the scale). That said, it is a true work of art and for that, I have to appreciate it. Now, the inside is a different story. This is where my breath was taken away. Even thinking back, I know I won't able to write anything that would approach giving justice to the magnificence of the interior. The key to it all are the incredible number of stained-glass windows, and their detail. In the morning sun, the play of light through the windows into the church was an overwhelming experience. In addition, each window and group of windows has been planned and thought out with specific purpose, and they're all designed to interact with one another and "choreograph" with each other during the course of the day. The Rieckhoff's had visited in the past, but they returned with us this time. I cannot imagine, but they told us that when they last visited only a few years ago, most of the stain glass windows were not in place. While certainly impressive on its own, to me the windows made the church. I know that for them, it was like visiting for the first time.

Additional groups of people were allowed in, in timed increments over the next hour, the crowds grew, and I'm sure by afternoon it would be wall-to-wall people. By coming early, however, I know we were afforded special opportunity to enjoy it with less bustle. I used every minute of that hour to explore, before we reassembled and took an elevator to the highest (currently highest; the largest towers have yet to be built) part of the tower complex, and then made our way slowly down several sets of spiral staircases, each of which had various cut-outs with balconies, from which we'd get views of the city and, more importantly, chances to view various details of the façade up close.

Below the church is a large and very impressive museum complex, where we watched an excellent short film on the church, including repeated affirmations that they hope to complete the church in 2026, on the centennial anniversary of Gaudi's death. When they showed in the film the scale of the remaining work, including a majority of the towers, and the aspiration to finish in 11 years, there were notable snickers within the crowd. While I hope (and plan) to return some day, I'm certain a visit even in 2030 will not be to a completed church. The cathedral, too, is completely privately funded, and has been from the beginning. While tickets sales, etc., are certainly bringing in a lot of money, the scale of work being done, upkeep on the existing structure, and the specialized skills required must be incredibly expensive.

As we finally exited the complex, the mass of humanity outside, planning or hoping to get inside, was overwhelming. People were everywhere, and the crowd was solid on all four sides of the block on which the cathedral sits. We literally pushed our way to the opposite side of the block, from where we would catch a hop-on/hop-off bus. Temperatures were already high, so we kept to shade as much as possible.

After queuing for a little while, we got on board a bus and, thankfully, our first clouds of the trip rolled in. Rain did not threaten, but the cloud cover kept temperatures down and made it very pleasant outside, upstairs on the bus.

In looking at the hop-on/hop-off bus map, it was evident what a huge city Barcelona truly is, and how much there was to see. K and I only had this one full day to hit the highlights, whereas Anna and the Rieckhoffs had most of the remainder of the week. We rode down a couple of stops to the Park Güell (you guessed it...UNESCO World Heritage site), which is a large complex of gardens and sculptures attributed to Gaudi. This is another place K wished to visit. The park sits atop a high hill overlooking the city. They have, thankfully, installed outdoor escalators to help tourists reach the park gates at the top of the hill. Relatively new, however, are controls by the city government to reduce crowds within the park and protect the infrastructure. This meant that people are only allowed in on timed tickets, and there was a very long line of people already waiting to buy. We joined the queue and quickly learned that the next available entrance time was 3:30pm, about four hours away. We called an audible and the Rieckhoffs elected to purchase tickets for themselves and Anna to return the following morning, whereas K and I would have to live vicariously through Anna's pictures.

The cloud cover, alas, burned away as we got back down to the hop-on/hop-off bus, and by the time we resumed the tour, the sun was relentless. The tour itself was quite good; head and shoulders above the quality of the narration on our tour in Lisbon. We completed most of the circuit before getting off at Placa da Catalunya, where we dove into the first restaurant we found which had air conditioning, and purposely chose a table beneath the blower. After a light lunch of tapas and ice cold beer, we split up, with Anna and I electing to take a different route on the hop-on/hop-off bus (we wanted to ride the complete circuit, and get an overview of everything), whereas K and Barbara wanted to head to an artisan community, and Jeff and Charlotte wanted to "explore." Waving goodbye as the four of them left on a bus together, we agreed to meet up again at 8:00pm for dinner.

Anna and I completed the tour, but it was very hot and we were already tired. It was obvious from what we saw that there is so much to see and do in the city. Almost every stop on the tour looked interesting and certainly worthy of more inspection, but we simply did not have the time.

We concluded the tour where we began. Anna wanted to do some shopping, but when we finally started to duck into various department stores and such, we both realized we were too tired and hot to deal with the crowds, so we headed back to the hotel to cool off in our rooms. I took advantage of the time to make reservations for our final communal meal of the trip, while everyone else slowly trickled back from their afternoon of exploring.

Relying on TripAdvisor for a restaurant, and wanting to get down into the Gothic quarter of the city, we found a cellar-like restaurant, where we had yet another outstanding meal. It was so good, I ended up documenting everyone's various courses and saving all the pictures. I wish I had done that earlier in the trip, too. We spent much of the meal taking turns talking about our highlights of the trip, and it was a perfect way to wrap up our time together.

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