Holy Sagrada Familia! And On To Madrid

Our last day in Barcelona. We definitely had some regrets. We really wish we would have booked a nicer place in Barcelona. From the unfortunate check-in process to the plastic bed, and the food poisoning paella, our hostel was just a huge miss. We felt so much better and happier after getting a good night's sleep in a nice place. The hotel we reserved was called Casa Emilia and it has a cafe/wine bar in the lobby. Kind of loud jazz music played until midnight but neither of us really cared.

Yet again, we packed up our bags and left them at the front desk to get later in the day. Our plan was to see a few more big sites in Barcelona and then take the train to Madrid in the evening at 8pm. I was feeling great after sleeping again. We stopped for our customary morning pastries (we will never get tired of pastries).

Our first stop was Sagrada Familia, the #1 big site in Barcelona. This a living breathing cathedral that is still under construction. Gaudi started designing and building it around 1910. He was alive long enough to see 1 side entrance built but that was it. The main spires will finally be finished in 2022 and the whole church will be completely finished in 2026.

It's spectacular. Both Lacey and I agree, if there's 1 single thing a person needs to do in Barcelona, it's seeing the outside and inside of Sagrada Familia. It's kind of pricey (about $30 per person) but it's worth it. We were lucky again because if it was the high season we wouldn't have been able to get tickets without reserving weeks or months in advance. Instead, we bought our tickets the night before.

There are 3 main entrances to the cathedral. Each one has a different theme. The entrance that was finished when Gaudi was alive is about Jesus' birth. There are lots of sculptures and beautiful little details all over. The opposite side entrance is about Jesus' death. It was completed about 30 years ago by a different artist who took Gaudi's ideas and made them his own. The death side is very austere and frankly depressing (as it should be). The sculptures are moving while being not that detailed. The last entrance isn't completed yet and will be at one end of the church. It will be about Jesus' assumption to heaven.

The inside of the Sagrada Familia is unlike anything I've ever seen (and I've seen a lot of churches). Gaudi took the idea of forest and put it inside a church. Using his innovative techniques, he was able to make a huge church seem even bigger inside. The stained glass windows on the birth side go from deep blues to green. The stained glass on the death side goes from bright yellow to fiery red. It's like a rainbow under tree branches? It's hard to describe but amazing to see. Because of the tree branch design, there's so much light in the cathedral. Truly jaw-dropping. Also, the audioguide for this was great too!

After that awe-inspiring tour, we could have taken the subway or a bus but we had time to kill and we like walking so that's what we did. The neighborhood we walked through is called Gracia and is kind of like Eixample with a grid pattern and nice rows of apartments and little shops. We stopped for a snack at "Cava and Cupcakes". As the name suggests, we had some cava and a cupcake. Walking around the wide streets built for pedestrians and filled with locals was fantastic.

Our last Barcelona sightseeing stop was Park Guell. Gaudi originally designed and built this to be a high-end housing development up in the hills but funding ran out. Now it's a great park with more Gaudi stuff that everyone can enjoy. There are benches on a terrace that give big views on Barcelona all the way down to the waterfront. There are also two gingerbread houses that were originally built to be gatehouses for the development--Lacey called them "Candyland". There's a walkway built to look like a surfer's paradise. Lastly, the main steps in the middle have some interesting sculptures. It was a worthwhile visit to see another part of town and more stuff by Gaudi.

We came to our least favorite part of the day, finding something to eat. After looking through our guide book and Google, we found a decent restaurant somewhat near our hotel. We still had a number of Spanish foods to try and this one fit the bill. I said in a previous post that Spanish people often eat tapas for meals. These are small little snacks shared among a few people (you typically get 3-5 of them). One famous one is patatas bravas. It's fried potatoes with paprika, garlic aioli, and a spicy pepper sauce. These were good! Another famous tapas is pepitas de Padron. These are grilled Padron peppers with lots of salt on them. These were fine but they gave us entirely too many of them haha. We also had croquettes (fried things filled with ham/cheese) and fried calamari. It was all good and fun to try lots of little things.

It was time to say goodbye to Barcelona. There were lots of highs and lots of lows. Overall, I think we both liked it but didn't love it. It was hard to shake the lows out of our minds haha.

We grabbed our bags and headed for the train station. We rode the metro  A LOT in Barcelona and it was always quite nice. The only problem was that inevitably we would ALWAYS miss our subway train by like 15 seconds. Like every single time, we would come down to grab a train we would see the tail end of it leaving. It was annoying haha.

The train between Barcelona and Madrid is a high-speed one that takes either 2.5 hours or 3 hours depending on if there are stops or not. We bought the tickets a couple days before we left on our trip. We got the Turista Plus seats and they were super nice. There were plugins and a table for us to share. I worked on blog posts and Lacey helped. It was a good time.

We arrived in Madrid at 11pm. After trying to get an Uber then realizing surge pricing was going (yuck), we decided to take the subway. Typical, reliable subway got us to Puerta del Sol, the main plaza in Madrid. We easily made our way to the hostel (it's only a 2 min walk from Puerta del Sol). Yet again, we were checking in late and got the F team for check-in. The guy gave me the thing to pay and I pressed "US Dollars" instead of Euros (we did this numerous times in Barcelona). He got super annoyed about it and I felt so bad. It was another just bad situation. But he figured it out and it ended up being fine.

Our room was nice! No squeaky bed, decent bathroom, even a tv! We got settled and went to bed.