Saturday, March 19, 2011

Barcelona - 18 March

I am in LOVE....Barcelona is so sexy.
After 10 hours sleep and a dose or two of panadol, I wake feeling much better and ready to tour the city.

We take a 2 hour bus ride on a Barcelona Bus Turistic to get an impression of the city. Here we pass two apartment blocks designed by the famous architect Antoni Gaudi and so many more of Barcelona's wonderful buildings. This trip helps us to identify a number of areas in the city that we will go back to explore including the habour. It is a city full of intriguing open public spaces, extensive shopping districts and tight medieval streets full of little galleries and curiosities.






Changing bus routes we now head to Gaudi's incredible Basilica i Temple Expiatori de la Sagrada Familia (losely translated to 'rather large roman catholic church dedicated to the holy family'). But first we stop for lunch. You would expect that the food outlets surrounding this church would be traditionally spanish but no, catering to the international tourists you can choose between McDonalds, KFC, Pizza Hut, Starbucks and Subways, just to name a handful. With the memory of my dodgy stomach fresh in my mind, we opt for a predictable subway sandwich. Now is not the time to try the local cuisine when that 'bloody great church' is just waiting for us to explore.






The queue into Sagrada Familia is small so we pleasantly soak up the sun while we wait. Once pass the ticket both we can absorb the full magnificients of this building. The interior is to 'die for'. I find it hard to discribe what we saw but can say that I felt as though I was walking under a forrest of intricate mushrooms bathed in a kaleidoscope of rainbow colours. My description does not do it justice. Gaudi was completely inspired by nature. Gaudi died before the church was finished and did not leave plans behind for its completion. An architectual firm has taken on the challenge of interpreting Gaudi, designing and completing the church which is funded with anonomous donations. Therefore, the church continues to be constructed with cranes joining the church spires. In his elder years, when asked what his thoughts were on probably not seeing the completion of his church, Gaudi responded with, "My client (God) has all the time in the world to wait" (loose quote).

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Welcome to the Dingopups Blog

Dingopups is the Foster families blog. Here you can see what our interests are and what we like to do with our time.

One of our current activities is traveling on a holiday in Italy and the UK.