Barcelona

What a beautiful city Barcelona was!  There was so much beautiful architecture! 

 One of the most famous buildings there was La Sagrada Familia: 

a marvelous cathedral that has been in construction since 1882!  The expected completion date is 2026 but who knows!  It is only completed a little at a time using private funds that come and go.

The architect, Antoni Gaudi, liked to base his works on things in nature such as caves, sand, animals, and fruit.  The picture below shows Christ nativity.  You can kind of see how the background resembles a sand castle.

As you can see, they have been working on this building a long time.

Very much unlike any church building I've seen!

Mansions were everywhere and most have been converted to dwellings or office buildings.

Parc Guell: also designed by Gaudi

This place was amazing.  So much color, so many arches, you should go to the wikipedia page to see more pictures of it.

 There were these funny pockets in the wall that people were getting into and taking pictures so David got in one and tried to be a fountain.

You can see the cave design here.

 Do you see the birds in the tree?

The park had a view of the whole city.  You can see La Sagrada Familia in the background.

Since it was Sunday, we went to church, for a few minutes at least, even though it was a catholic church, we figured it was ok because we didn't understand what they were saying anyway. :)

Here is a gate designed by Gaudi.  It looks like a dragon and the tour guide said that the dragon moves when the gate is opened, or at least it used to.

I thought this was funny, an ancient palace now turned into Coke and Danon office buildings.

We kept seeing these all over the city so I had to get a picture of one! Did any of you see that episode? 

 Not quite sure what this is but we saw it and had to take a picture.

Another beautiful building with roof tiles made to look like the scales of a dragon.

Way in the distance a castle on the hill.

After our tour, we went back to the hotel and sat in the hot tub.  There was one on the roof and we got to have a good look at the city one more time.