Mallorca 401
Metro: Sagrada Familia (L2, L5)
Tel: 93 207 3031/ 93 208 0414
Hrs Oct-Feb: 09:00-18:00. Hrs Mar-Sep/ Abr-Sep: 09:00-20:00;
Admission: 8€, students/ estudiantes 5€. Tour: 3,50€.

This monumentous cathedral was always going to be Antoni Gaudí's unfinished work. Even if he had not been run over and killed by a tram at the age of 74 in 1926, his vision of an architectural celebration of Christ's birth, crucifixion and glorious ascension was so ambitious that here we are, more than 120 years later, and this extraordinary monument is still a long way from being completed - perhaps another two or three decades of having cranes and scaffolding getting in the way of a proper appreciation of what Gaudí was trying to achieve.
The architects selected to carry on his work could never truly follow Gaudí's spiritual journey, but progress is being made on what has been called the Bible in stone. Gaudí designed three façades, representing the Nativity, the Passion and the Glory of Christ. Only the Nativity façade was completed in Gaudí's time, and is a mass of sculpted animals and plants, a reflection of his devotion to Mother Nature.
For years, the dominating feature from the outside was the group of four towers, decorated in ceramic mosaics, which were built between 1903 and 1926 above the Nativity façade and are over 100 metres high. But now there are eight towers, the extra four built more recently, above the Passion façade. According to Gaudí's designs, there are to be a total of 18 towers: four over each of the three façades, representing the twelve Apostles, four dedicated to the writers of the Gospels, and the final two in celebration of the Virgin Mary and Christ. The tower representing Christ which will dominate the others, will be 170 metres high.
As a visitor to this unique building, you must climb the narrow spiral staircases at either end of the building to the top of the towers (or you can take the lifts), where you can walk across the enclosed parapets to get a bird's eye view of Gaudí's obsession with detail. Every section of the cathedral you see is covered in multiple carvings and embellishments. It's breathtaking.