Lauren Termini Photography: France|Spain Day Five • Barcelona, Spain

For our second day in Barcelona, we had a personal tour guide take us around the various sights in the city. The structure of the tour was ideal because a lot more information was conveyed, and we had the opportunity to get to know our guide, Sylvia, better. She truly knew a lot about her country and her culture, and also shared with us that she runs tours in six different languages.

The morning of our tour included a walk through Parque Güell, the Sagrada Familia, and two other locations of Gaudí's architecture. We then went to a traditional Barcelona lunch with Sylvia, who helped us to order the true traditional dishes. Once lunch was over, a tour through the Picasso museum and a stroll through Old Barcelona were on our agenda. I apologize for not having pictures of the Picasso museum, no photography was allowed, but take my word for it, it was amazing. It was full of many paintings from when he was a teenager, long before his famous works of cubism.

Overall, it was a very successful and educational day. Barcelona is an awesome city with a great history, and one fantastic architect.

This is just a taste of Gaudí's skill... (Just kidding, just your average street performer).

Gaudí's work was ahead of it's time which is shown in his use of natural materials and his mathematical calculations and the overall vision of his designs.

Gaudí's house was absolutely incredible. Nature is his biggest influence in his work and he uses curved edges on everything he creates to mimic the fact that nothing in nature is straight.

Barcelona from Park Güell.

Guard house and waiting area.

All the mosaics are made from found objects and tiles collected from trash around the city.

This bench is extremely long, curvy and ergonomic. It was surprisingly comfortable.

This tunnel is the natural shape of the mountain.

The mosaic tiles were broken into pieces and put back together to show the concave, creating the illusion of a cushion.

The Sagrada Familia directly translates to Sacred Family, because this cathedral depicts the story of the Virgin Mary, Joseph and Jesus. What some consider to be most impressive about the Sagrada Familia, is that Gaudí spent 43 years of his life working on it, and to this day it is not yet complete. Gaudí spent so much time and effort on this work of art, that towards the end of his life he lived on the grounds, and today his body resides in the cathedral's crypt. Currently there are 8 towers on top of the cathedral, but there will be 18 total upon completion. Looking at the façade of the Sagrada Familia, it depicts many scenes from the Bible, which is why most call it the "stone Bible."

Sagrada Familia started construction on Gaudí's vision in the year 1883, and the expected date of completion is 2026, the 100th anniversary of Gaudí's death. Today the church is being completed by a construction team and a committee of architects who make all of the crucial decisions based on Gaudí's vision. There is a lot of intriguing information regarding the Sagrada Familia and Gaudí himself, so if this is of interest to you I highly recommend looking further into it.

The columns in the church mimic trees due to the fact that Gaudí loved nature.

The ceiling of just 1/6th of the church, covered in gold leaf.

Before there were computers, there were sandbags. The entire church was designed using sandbags and string mimicking the parabolic arches. This model is the upside down design of what the Sagrada Familia is today. Because of this design, the cathedral is structurally sound.