To finish off our Gaudi tour of Barcelona, Dan and I visited the requisite Sagrada Familia, Gaudi´s famous unfinished masterpiece. They started construction on the church around 1897 (I think?) and didn´t finish it...not even thirty years later, even though Gaudi dedicated the rest of his life to overseeing its construction. Gaudi even went so far as shacking up in the bowels of its underground crypt, so he could work day and night on it.Gaudi died in the late 1920s, and they only finished construction on a tiny fraction of his original vision for the church. Something like 4 out of the planned 18 towers.
Unfortunately, for Gaudi, he met the ill-fate of being run over by a tram. Dan heard me say over and over the whole trip...how the heck do you get run over by a tram?
Then, while we were in Zurich, which has about a bajillion trams, I was carelessly NOT paying attention while taking photographs of the main train station. Dan crossed ahead, while I hung back to let one tram pass by before stepping out into the street, only to turn at the sound of the "I´m going to run you over if you don´t get the hell out of my way," bell from the second tram, coming the other way.
Yeah, that´s how you get run over by a tram.
Above is an example of some of the intricate work on the facade of the original church. Apparently, Gaudi was a deeply religious man, so working on Sagrada Familia was like a calling for him.
This is Dan atop the original towers--see below.
After we finished climbing the original towers, we went down to the base and decided that we should be good tourists and climb up the newly-constructed, theme-park version of Gaudi´s Sagrada Familia--which is what you see below.
I´m definitely in favor of leaving the church alone, as it was when Gaudi died, instead of "finishing it" for the sake of tourisim. Dan was more on-the-fence. He liked the fruit tops on the new towers.
Oh Dan. You and Augustus Gloop.
