On commenting/Sagrada Familia/Aquarium/the Beach

On commenting:

My dear friends and readers,
I have received indication that leaving me comments sometimes did not work. *sigh* I don´t know what it is with this, since I opened the "Anonymous"-function it should have worked problem-free - due to Google of course. Now I added the full-page form which works - also due to Google - even better and changed a few clicks, I hope that problems have been solved. Please try again and keep me informed on that issue!
Thank you so much to all of you who provided me with nice comments or even just said "Hi" - on the blog, per email or on FB - please try again to leave comments on the blog, I love receiving them and I value them very much! And it is so much fun to communicate with you folks! :)

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Now I think it is about time that I tell you a bit about Sagrada Familia, the famous Gaudi church, which we have visited in Barcelona.

The Basílica y Templo Expiatorio de la Sagrada Familia or short Sagrada Familia is Gaudi´s masterpiece. It is still work in process, so  it was very difficult to make a nice shot from the outside without too many cranes to be seen, so unfortunately this is all we can provide you with at the moment. They are very busy building the outside, for you people who go there next time most probably the whole church will have changed a lot!

As a friend of mine - who is very good in architecture - said, "Gaudi probably was on LSD when he built that!" Lol, the outside very much gave me that impression, it all looks melted, with so many details that you get dizzy - and I personally just can agree with a couple of English travellers we met there, "I loved it inside, but I don´t know about the outside..."

Anyway, Gaudi took over the Sagrada Familia project in 1883, and he knew that he would not see it finished, therefore he left very detailed descriptions on how it should be done. After he had died 1926 in a train accident - lonely, grumpy and disappointed by the world, having lived alone in the crypta of Sagrada, which he had transferred into his office and appartment - the world forgot about Gaudi for a while. But in the 1950s work picked up again with full speed, and the Gouvernment expects the church to be finalized by 2026. So let´s wait and see!

You know that architecture definately is not my field of expertise, and the Art Deco district in Miami or Austria´s Wiener Moderne are complete lost on me. But when I stepped into Sagrada Familia, the first thought that shot through my head was, "Wow, it definately has got something!" And that is an understatement.

The inside of the church is very light, with lots of colours, wonderful details and always reminiscences to nature, where Gaudi got many of his inspirations from. For example the columns remind the visitor to trees, holding up the firmament, the inlays of mountain crystal to the eyes of God watching over us, aso (most references of course in connection with the Catholic believe as Sagrada is a Catholic church and Gaudi was a deep believer).

We sat there for quite a while and simply admired what we saw. The audioguide gave us tons of details, but I won´t bore you with this. In case you are interested there are heaps of information on Sagrada Familia on the internet. Let me just say, that this church is a special place, for believers to worship, for the simple visitor to dwell in fasciation on how much talent and inspiration has been used on this brilliant work of art.

I especially loved the wonderful windows that have been put into place quite recently. The window on the photo is the "window of light", right opposite to the "window of water" - because Jesus is supposed to have said "I am the light and water of the world". (Good ego, mind! Well, I doubt that if he really said something like this that he said it exactly like this, he seems to have been a rather modest man, actually, but I won´t prattle on about this either.)

And here we have the beautiful "window of resurrection" which is the final part to "light" and "water". When I first saw it the light fell through just in the right angle, and it gleamed like a diamond! What an impressive place, we loved it there. Please bear in mind, if you go there, calculate enough time, you definately need a while to sit down and digest what you see. It is overwhelming!

In the afternoon we visited the Harbour area again, because we wanted to see the Aquarium of Barcelona. It used to be the biggest aquarium of Europe, but recently this title went to Valencia where they built an even bigger one. If you are expecting something like Sea World, you will be disappointed. No dolphins, no killer whales, no Shamu shows - and I give them high credit for this! I visited Sea World a couple of times, and I loved it, but I was younger and more naive at that time and I would not go there anymore. Whales and dolphins are long distance swimmers, you cannot keep them in a small tank - at least this is my point of view, no hurt feelings please.

The Aquarium in Barcelona is a much smaller place than seaworld, the main attraction being an immensely gigantic open water tank, where they keep lots of huge sharks and many other open-water fish. An endless moving walkway takes you around this tank with platforms to step back and watch in even better detail and for as long as you want.

The tank and its inhabitants are very hard to photograph, this shot here is meant to give you a slight impression - but believe me, it is enourmous! My curiousity was especially picked by some sunfish which live there at the moment. You obviously find them very often in the open water off the coast, and it happens that fishermen catch and bruise them with their nets by mistake. Then these rare fish are taken to the Aquarium, nursed back to health and released into the sea again. Well, these creatures are not only very shy and very rare, but also very clever, because we only saw a view glimpses of them, and then they were gone in a flash before our camera could even say "click"....

After all this excitement we were very tired and needed a place to relax - which we found at the beach!

The beach area of Barcelona is close by, it is only a good 20 minutes walk away from the Aquarium. And while walking there is plenty to see as one of the marinas is also right there.

The beaches are nice and clean and not as crowded as you might expect. What a perfect city, it really has got everything!!

And it is so close to all the other places of interest. The subway has a station right next to the beach, so there is easy access, they are free of charge, and people seem to integrate the beaches into their daily routine. We saw bikers, joggers, moms pushing their prams.... I definately would integrate the beach into my daily life! Can we please hold our next lecture there?

And back at home base some relaxed evening stroll before bedtime. Oh happy day....