After reluctantly departing the Loire Valley we headed south for a few days in Barcelona. We decided to take the longer and more arduous route through Andorra just to say we’d seen it. At 181 square miles, Andorra is the sixth smallest nation in Europe, lying in the Pyrenees between Spain and France. It relies on tourism and its status as a tax haven for almost its entire GDP of $3.6Bn. It was quite a steep and curvy ride but absolutely gorgeous. There were wildflowers blooming all over the mountainside and it was breathtaking. Truly the pictures don’t do it justice.

We drove through northern Spain and past Mont Serrat with its beautiful jagged peaks before arriving at our hotel on the outskirts of Barcelona.

I have flown through Barcelona while traveling for business but never stayed, and this was Larry’s first visit to Spain. We were both looking forward to seeing a little bit of the city, eating some tapas, and of course visiting La Sagrada Familia. We spent the better part of Sunday afternoon at La Sagrada Familia and I have to say that my opinion of it changed once I visited it in person. In all photographs I’ve ever seen it’s never been an appealing building to me aesthetically. Just not my style. While I thought it was interesting and very unique, I never really liked it. Larry perfectly summed it up when he said it appears “oozing” in all the pictures. As we walked up to the “passion entrance” we were both struck speechless by the structure itself and the sculptures (done by Josep Subirachs) that adorn that facade. It is truly moving in person.

La Sagrada Familia is the master work of the renowned Catalan architect Antoni Gaudi. Construction began in 1882 and is still ongoing, being funded by private donations and entrance fees. They expect it to be completed by 2030. Gaudi worked on it for a total of 40 years of his life, and lived long enough to see the Nativity facade completed (he did the sculptures there himself to remind those working on it of the importance of their work) and one of the towers. In the end it will have 18 towers total, the tallest being that which represents Christ, the others representing the four Evangelists, the twelve Apostles, and the Virgin Mary. The tallest tower will be one meter lower than that of nearby Montjuic, as Gaudi felt his work should not be taller than that of God.

As a child, Gaudi was somewhat sickly. In order to get him some exercise and fresh air, his mother would take him on nature walks for hours. It was from these walks that his interest in nature and nature’s architecture, combined with his natural aptitude in geometry and math, created the unique style that is his own. Every column in the Sagrada Familia follows the same geometrical patterns that occur in nature, some of which had not been used in architecture before: helicoids, hyperboloids, paraboloids, conoids, and ellipsoids. With helicoids he created the double twisted column, a new column in the history of architecture. His love of nature shows in every aspect of the building. For example, the columns inside the chapel itself are tree trunks, with their leaves sprawling out over the ceiling. Literally hundreds of animals are sculptured into the facade.

We rode the elevator to the top and then walked down. Great views.

We topped off the night with some tapas, including my favorite, the Spanish omelette.

Day 2 in Spain started out great but ended up with Larry carrying a ruined wheel on his head for a mile to a 24-hour repair station. We had a great day shopping and walking through La Rambla and through a very large open air food market nearby, where I couldn’t resist trying some of the yellow watermelon. It tastes the same but it’s just so wrong, like purple cauliflower.

We spent some time down on the beach watching the joggers/rollerbladers/dog walkers and enjoying the Mediterranean breeze.

After that we decided to head back to our hotel. Along the road, two people on a scooter honked and pointed down at our car. I opened my door and peered out to discover we were driving on a complete flat. We pulled around the corner at the next intersection and then spent 3+ hours trying to find somewhere to get a new wheel, after we discovered we had no spare tire, only a spare repair kit, which didn’t fix ours because the puncture was along the sidewall (see Larry’s post about the various crime attempts and successes during our Barcelona adventure).

Day 3 in Spain started out bad and ended bad. See Larry’s previous post. No need to re-hash. But I’m not bitter. I will make one disclaimer in slight defense of Spain: the guys who got us were not Spaniards. The reason that the southern European countries are so bad for petty crime is that they have a high level of immigrants, particularly from northern Africa. The guys who got us looked like they were probably Algerian, possibly South American. You would think that would prompt said southern European countries to get more serious about immigration and border control.