Today marks our last day in Barcelona, another fabulous Spanish city that we have loved. We’ve managed (as a group) to have seen and/or experienced almost everything that Barcelona is known for.

• FC Barcelona (tick, Robbie Williams mention as well as watching them play on the TV against Real Madrid in Malaga).
• Architecture (tick – you are constantly surrounded by amazing architecture)
• Festivals and street parties (tick, the unexpected Giant street party while on the walking tour)
• Long sandy beaches (tick – see below)
• Good food (tick, every meal has been gorgeous including Indian a couple of nights ago)
• Good weather (tick lots of beautiful blue skies and no rain)
• Famous artists and writers (tick, more artists than writers)
• Political demonstrations (we’ve heard about them so tick)
• Smart city and start up hub (we’ve also heard about this so tick)

We have late checkout of our hotel today as we are travelling by train to San Sebastián this afternoon. Leaving Barcelona at 3.30pm we’ll arrive in San Sebastián about 9.30pm.

Pip had pre purchased us tickets for a 9.15am entry into the Basilica and then a 9.45am time slot for us to visit the Tower of Passion, and as part of the ticket you can download the Sagrada Familia app to listen to the audio guide.

To be honest my first impression when I got inside was, this is like a museum with some beautiful stained glass windows but with none of the feeling that I have experienced when I’ve walked into other Basilica’s so was a little disappointed.

Up in the elevator we go just eight of us at a time and I must say how lovely to be getting a lift rather than walking up. Just in case you wondered why the option of walking up the stairs has been taken away (I was simply grateful 😂) well once you start coming down you understand. The stairwells are really skinny, so skinny that only one person can be on a stair at a time and so when people were going in both directions (up and down) there was terrible congestion add that to the limited landing spots so you can move aside it was a nightmare. Apparently people were trapped sometimes for hours with many feeling dreadfully claustrophobic. This solution is great combined with the booked time slots and the limited space in the lift which is a maximum of eight people I think.

Back to being up in the heavens, it is pretty cool to be up high and looking at the construction that’s taking place but there isn’t a lot of space to see things and so you probably only stay up in the tower for less than ten minutes looking around – it’s not like your average viewing platform/s, but you can get some nice pictures and not all of them include scaffolding (see below). And of course it’s still being built ..

Five hundred stairs is quite the trip down, have I mentioned how my legs are getting an excellent workout 😂. I was pretty happy at this point and feeling a bit more positive and then I turned on the audio guide and this is where it all begins to change for me.

As part of the introduction you begin to learn about this building and how Gaudi envisaged it. He knew that he would never see the project completed and so he very carefully articulated his vision which was complex and yet simple. The attention to detail is incredible he designed eighteen towers with a central tower that would be 172.5 metres high dedicated to Jesus Christ. This central tower will be surrounded by four towers for each of the evangelists (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John) and the Tower of Our Lady (rising 138 metres and the second highest) and then twelve more towers for the twelve apostles.

My feeling of this being a space without the normal “church feel – my words” was actually what Gaudi intended when he was designing it. There aren’t chapels in the aisles and there are very few statues.

Gaudi designed the interior like it was a forest, his love of and connection to nature is very evident here just as it was at Park Guell. He consciously made a decision that the story of Christ’s life was captured on the outside of the building and not so overtly in the interior.

Can you see the tree trunks and branches holding up the ceiling?

Everything that is here is meticulously planned and so beautifully delivered. You’re encouraged through the audio guide to take the time to look at each piece of the design down to the faces on some of the figures and you can see where Gaudi has asked people in the neighbourhood to model for him and then made plaster moulds of their faces to create his stone statues.

The building is incredibly light, with large windows and skylights as well as lots of bright colour in the stained glass windows. The colours in these windows has been picked specifically for each facade. The more I listened and I guess experienced how he wanted people to see this place the more I loved it. For me this is why I get an audio guide, it can make all of the difference.

I left this beautiful place on a bit of a high, but then remembered hearing that there are concerns being raised by home owners living on the other side of the street that they believe that they may risk eviction. They are worried that two entire blocks of housing could be demolished as Sagrada Familia comes closer to being finished. Here’s hoping for a good outcome for all.

And finally I am happy to say that while I was impressed so apparently was Mr George Lucas. Tyler (our Barcelona Walking Tour Guide) mentioned when we were outside of the Sagrada Familia a couple of days ago that Mr Lucas was in Barcelona during the planning stage of the first Star Wars movie A New Hope (Episode IV) and visited Sagrada Familia.He was so impressed by the shape of the headwear of the centurions that he decided to model Darth Vader’s helmet on them. Extraordinary – gosh I hope it’s true 🥂.