Good thing Tina is used to getting up at 4:30 in the morning because our wake up call never called. We enjoyed a light breakfast at the hotel; there was a nice spread of meats, croissants, breads and pastries. We grabbed some fruit incase we got a little hungry later.
Off we went map in hand to find were we had to meet for our tour. We passed many of the sites that were part of our trek to find the train station yesterday morning. That is where Tina had a panic attack (see photo). Oh. . . that is the first non-English speaking person we asked for directions.
We arrived at our meeting place with plenty of time to spare. We waited in a near by park and watched the world go by, well Jared watched, Tina was flipping through her guidebook. Eventually we learned that the tour was going to have to be cancelled because 2 other people who had signed up for the tour did not show up, so there weren’t enough people to run the tour. They informed us that we would be refunded through our travel agency and off we went to find another tour.
We settled on Barcelona Bus Turistic, which includes three bus routes, with numerous stops, and information via headphones in 8 different languages!! We opted for the two-day pass because there is a lot to see and we didn’t want to feel rushed. We headed off on the Blue Bus and decided to get off at Sagrada Familia. For those of you who do not know this church, it is the one they have been building since 1882. In 1883 Antoni Gaudi (known just as Gaudi because he has designed half the city) was commissioned as the principle architect. Gaudi died in 1926, since then other architects have added their own touch to Gaudi’s master creation. The projected is funded by the millions of visitors a year (the lines wrapped around the church) paying 10 e for admission into the church.
We did not go into the church because we are leaving Barcelona on Monday and we would have been in line until at least Tuesday. We trekked around the church, two of which have parks. Again it is hard to describe this church as it has so many amazing details and one side of is barely even started. The anticipated date of completion is 2026, the 100th anniversary of Gaudi’s death.
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