Within our unforgettable travels this summer, the Sagrada Familia was among the rarest, most memorable places we visited. Antoni Gaudi's ultimate masterpiece, still in progress 84 years after his death, is like another planet, full of unimaginable beauty and reinterpretations of traditional Christian themes. It is especially fascinating to see the progress of color and detail across the church, initially a celestial white, as it approaches completion.
The roof and marble floors were added only recently. On Steve's previous visit a few years ago, he walked on dirt floors and overhead could see the open sky. Now, the gaze is drawn ever upward by spiral staircases at the corners of the nave, toward an oddly magnificent ceiling reminiscent of the canopy of a forest.
The facades outside to the east and west are competing explosions of sculptural interpretations of the life of Christ, with motifs from the natural world incorporated into the scenes in abundance. Gaudi designed the Nativity facade before his death, while Josep Maria Subirachs put his own starkly modern stamp on the style of the Passion facade (you can see Peter mourning his denial of Christ as the cock crows earlier on this page). It is all more than one can properly take in without months or years of contemplation.
We spent an easy afternoon in Parc Guell, a decidedly more secular pursuit from the master of Catalan Modernisme. Gaudi's mark is everywhere in Barcelona--apartment buildings on the Passeig de Gracia, sidewalk tiles throughout the city, and here, in the park he designed at its center.
(And yes, Violet at last got her Roman Holiday haircut, albeit at her mother's hand in a small town in Spain, rather than by a stranger in a quaint Italian barber shop in Rome...)
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