A day pretty much on our own to do Barcelona as we pleased. One of things I was most looking forward to on this trip was getting back to Barcelona and seeing Sagrada Familia again. I was interested to see what they had managed to accomplish in the ten years since we were last here. Because 2026 marks the 100th anniversary of Antoni Gaudi’s untimely death, Sagrada Familia was supposed to be finished. Judging by the number of cranes and scaffolding we saw, I would say that goal had not been met! They do claim that it has been structurally completed and the rest is just finishing touches. However we also heard that thy would still be working on it for the next decade. They do have a celebration of sorts planned for the summer as that will be the actual 100th anniversary.
We had decided to take a tour this time instead of just winging it and I am glad we did, because I learned so much more about the history, the construction and Gaudi’s vision for the project.We also opted for the tower option, which was worth the extra. I remember being gob-smacked last time by the sheer size and grandeur of the building, both inside and out and I was no less impressed this time. The simple beauty of the space, how Gaudi used his knowledge of nature and incorporated it into his design, his use of light and his brilliant understanding of geometry and architectural and mathematical concepts are nothing nothing short of amazing. You could spend a full day there and not take in everything.
Once we had our fill (well mine, really - I took sooo many pictures!), we decided to head off for a bite to eat. Our original plan was to head over to the Picasso museum, but in giving it more thought, I decided we really hadn’t left enough time to really do justice to the 4 000+ artifacts spread across five palaces that the museum encompasses. That, and the fact that it started to PDR, didn’t encourage us to go wandering about in search of it. BUT in my research I had discovered that Barcelona has one of the three Moco Museums, the others being in Amsterdam and London.We had taken in the Amsterdam one when we were there, and I was keen to check this one out. Moco stands for MOdern COntemporary, hence the name and it houses works by some of the world’s best known contemporary artists. Banksy, of course, but also Andy Warhol, Dali, Keith Haring and Robbie Williams to name but a few. I quite like contemporary art and thoroughly enjoyed the works we saw there.
Back to the hotel to meet up with the rest of the crew to head out for dinner. A great little tapas bar with some kinds of tapas we hadn’t seen before but they were delish. It is kind of nice having a smaller group because you get to talk to different people.