Sagrada Familia

The Sagrada Familia is Gaudi's famous cathedral in Barcelona. It's still in construction, around half way finished, and has been going for nearly a hundred years. There are people working on it constantly, and it's like walking around a very fancy building site. Here's the man of the moment, our Lord, on the front of the cathedral. The feel of the carvings at the front is very modern, considering that it was designed a hundred years ago. It's almost cubist in it's approach with very stylised shapes.



Above is Hugh at the front of the building. Note the same stylised approach as the crucifixion, and the plain backdrop. Here's me then at the back. It's much more gothic here. The back face is very elaborate and has carvings representing the whole Old Testament. It's amazing. It's an enormous wall covered in hundreds of huge life size carvings. No wonder it's taking so long to build! There's John Hearn playing the basoon, Mom on the violin and uncly Noel on the banjo too (with girls hair).




Gaudi was strongly influenced by nature and the colours and shapes he uses are inspired by plants and animals. The colums supporting the cathedral inside are modelled on tree trunks. The are huuuuuge. The light on the top left of the picture is the hole in the roof. At the moment the front and back towers are built, but there is still a larger central tower to even be started.


This is looking up at the front towers. Each of these is as high as the spire in Dublin. You can take a lift to the top of one of them and walk around. It's very high up. These are pictures of the tops of the towers adjacent to the one we were in. Gaudi is using his fruity influence here. On one of the towers is a load of carvings of birds taking flight. It's fabulous.




Here is a random hole in the wall. This is when I started to get a bit freaked out about the height. See the lads building away. I don't know how they don't fall off.



You have the option of getting the lift back down or climbing down a narrow windy staircase. It's not so bad at the start, just narrow and steep. Here's hugh showing off his no fear of heights walking backwards. Soon after though, the centre of the stairs disappears and you are left clinging to the walls trying not to fall down the middle. I caused a huge tailback of amused tourists with my slowness on the way down. Never again. Next time it's the lift!