Barcelona, What Were You Thinking?

I'm not going to lie, a big part of me wishes our cruise began and ended in a different place. I've never had much desire to be in Spain, but it's still Europe. There are still things to explore and experience, right?

This evening I spent a bit of time Googling things to see and do in Barcelona. Time and again the Sagrada Familia pops up as the number one thing to see in the city. I can see why it's such a popular location - it's a building straight out of a nightmare. I can't quite understand what the architect, Antoni Gaudí, was thinking. Or, for that matter, the entire city. They seem to have embraced his architecture on a wide scale. As far as the Sagrada Familia goes, I personally believe it looks more like something out of a Tim Burton world, or Oz, than a Roman Catholic Cathedral. Seriously, I look at it and I think spiders. Big, gigantic spiders. I think it's because the design looks to be made of cobwebs.

Gaudi's work is peppered throughout the city, and I think that might be what is turning me off of Barcelona as a whole. We might have to give our B-Town sightseeing a purpose and look for architecture that's not cob-webby. This tunnel is pretty cool, though, don't you think? It's in Park Guell, which contains more Gaudi weirdness.

It's too bad Paris isn't closer to Barcelona. There's a two-country Spain'n France rail pass. I'm thinking that Barcelona is going to end up being the European equivalent of our quick trip to Bear Lake....once is enough. Surely there are things to see apart from the Aquarium, the Picasso and Dali museums, and the beach. I'm just not finding them tonight. Maybe we should visit as many of Gaudi's works as possible and rank them in order of weirdness. That would be kind of cool.