The big trip for today was visiting Sagrada Familia and Park Guell. Sagrada Familia is a huge church designed by Antoni Gaudi. Construction started in 1882 and is still continuing to this day.
The entire structure is built with many symbolic meanings behind them. One of them being the number of towers. With 18 total it is supposed to represent 12 apostles, 4 for the evangelists, 1 for the Virgin Mary, and 1 for Jesus.
Nature is also a big part of the design. With elements of mountains and cliffs found at the pillars and columns representing and looking like trees. Going inside really puts into perspective how absolutely massive it is. My favorite part was the various stained glass windows. Depending on the time of day you will see different colors painted throughout.
After Sagrada Familiar, we were bused over to Park Guell, which was also designed by Antoni Gaudi. There are a number of notable spots within the park including a big winding bench overlooking Barcelona and a big arched terrace.
There were original intentions for it to be a housing community, but that never happened, with only 2 actually being built. Walking through I saw a lot more of Gaudi’s design staples with avoiding straight lines, references to nature, and incorporating bright colors.
I really liked checking out both spots, they provided interesting insight into some of the famous architecture found within Barcelona. What I appreciated most about his work is the avoidance of using straight lines and incorporating nature within these places. And that’s about it.