Come A Long Way Baby – still a ways to go, though

When I was in Barcelona 10 years ago, we visited the Sagrada Familia, Gaudi’s unbelievably massive project that has been underway since the late 1800s. 10 years ago, the inside of the church looked something like this:

Now, it looks like this:

But the church is FAR from finished – the goal is apparently to complete the project by 2026, the 100th anniversary of Gaudi’s death (by streetcar – yikes.) They’re not sure if they’ll make it, and I’m not either. There’s still a ridiculously gigantic tower that has to go up, bigger than the current towers, one of which we went up, and it’s really tall.

This is the end goal – they haven’t even started the massive middle tower with the cross on top! To put it in perspective, we climbed one of the towers at the very front, above the diagonal pillars.

Before our afternoon at the Sagrada Familia, we spent a while roaming around Parc de Montjuic, which rests on top of a hill and has lovely views of the city and the port.

We got to the top via funicular rial and cable car, which was definitely the way to go. Do we think it’s called a funicular because it’s really fun?

Then we had a very pleasant walk downhill through gardens, stopping at the Olympics Museum (which was more of an all-inclusive sports museum – golf, cricket, and race cars were involved and the last I checked, they don’t play those at the Olympics. And I LOVE the Olympics). But there was still some cool stuff.

Seles’, Sampras’, Navratilova’s, and Sanchez-Vicario’s Shoes

Olympic Torches over the years!

Then we passed by Barcelona’s Olympic Stadium (they hosted the games in 1992), and continued on down the hill, which ends with a gorgeous fountain in front of a gorgeous building that houses the National Museum of Catalan Art. Gorgeous weather, great day, zero complaints from this girl.