Sagrada Familia is one Antoni Gaudi's works.  It is not yet finished until now but the architects that took over continued the work after Gaudi's original idea.  Currently, this church is one of the symbols of Barcelona.

When the church is finished it will have 18 towers: 12 dedicated to the apostles, 4 to the evangelists, one to Jesus and another to Mary. [The Sagrada Familia website]

Sagrada Familia

From Park Guell to Sagrada Familia

We took bus 92 from the bus stop by the Carretera Carmel-Park Guell stop.  It does not actually pass by Sagrada Familia but there's a stop a few blocks away from it.  We informed the driver where we're going and he dropped us off the nearest bus stop to the church.  A map would be helpful if the driver doesn't understand English.  We've seen the top of the church while we're aboard the bus and got weary as we're already past it.  We asked other passengers and we were assured that we have not missed our stop.

When we got off (it must have been the Dos de Maig-Rossello stop), we took a street going to the right (facing the direction our bus is headed) and just walked straight (I think that's Carrer de Provenca) until the we see the church towers.

Bus 92 Route

The street we passed has parking in the middle of the street

Finally, we saw this!  This was on the side of Placa de Gaudi.

There's a Sagrada Familia metro station so maybe you could take that if coming from other parts of Barcelona.



Placa de Gaudi

We got to the site via Placa de Gaudi.  There are lots of people there on a Tuesday, probably because it's almost siesta time when we got there.  We noticed most of the people are looking in one direction, and we saw some elders playing a game.  We're not sure what this game is called but they have these "big marbles" (at least it looks like a game of marbles to us).  Me and my friend called it "Jolens a la Espanya", hahaha!
 

"Big Marbles" game at Placa de Gaudi

There's also a pond in the plaza where one can see the reflection of the church.

The Nativity facade of Sagrada Familia and the
church's reflection in the pond at Placa de Gaudi

The Church

Ticket to go inside Sagrada Familia costs Euro14.80 per person.  If not for the long line for the tickets, we would have gone in.  I guess it's better to buy tickets online to reserve a slot for a specific time.  Since we do not have the luxury of time, we just took some pictures outside and went back to the hostal.

Looking closely at the towers of the Passion facade, it shows the names of some of the apostles

[Update] I just got information from a fellow PExer that the "big marbles" game is called Petanque.

Experiencing Park Guell

Park Guell is a garden complex with architectural elements situated on the hill of El Carmel in the Gracia district of Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain.  It was designed by the Catalan architect Antoni Gaudi and built in the years 1900 to 1914.  It has an extension of 17.18 ha (0.1718 km²), which makes it one of the largest architectural works in South Europe.  It is part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site "Works of Antoni Gaudi". [Wiki]

From Placa de Catalunya, we took bus 24 from the nearest bus stop along Passeig de Gracia.  The bus stop is Carretera Carmel-Park Guell stop.  It will be after the coach parking area and one of the ticket offices of the park.  Other options on getting to the park can be found here.

Ticket office on the left side of the road; near Carretera Carmel-Park Guell stop

We got there around 9:30AM, just beating the tourist groups, so we were able to get slots at the 9:30AM batch.  Tickets cost at Euro8 per adult.  If bought online, you would be able to save Euro1 on the admission ticket.

Park Guell Map

Park Guell tickets

Park Guell tickets and map

Some park regulations

It should be noted that entrance is limited to 400 visitors every half hour.  So, if the there are already 400 visitors lined up for the next batch of visitors to get in, you might need to wait for the next available slot.  Although, entrance is limited to a certain number of visitors, the stay of the visitors are not limited to just half hour.  One could stay inside as long as he/she wants to.  One could roam around the free entrance zone area in case one needs to wait for the allotted time.

Our route: Carretera Carmel ticket office --> Nature Square --> Laundry Room Portico --> Ramp and Casa Larrard --> Entrance and Porter's Lodge --> La Casa del Guarda --> Dragon Stairway --> Hypostyle Room --> Austria Gardens --> Nature Square --> Free zone --> Carretera Carmel ticket office

All the descriptions below come from http://www.parkguell.cat/en/park-gueell/visit-of-the-monumental-precinct.

Panoramic View

Greek Theatre or Nature Square
Right at the centre of the monumental zone of Park Güell is the large esplanade which the original plans called the Greek Theatre and which has more recently been rechristened as Plaça de la Natura (Nature Square). Its original name was due to the fact that it was planned for staging large open-air shows that could be watched from the surrounding terraces. Although Gaudí always respected the lie of the land, this large square is artificial. Part of it is dug into the rock, while the other part is held up on top of the hypostyle room. On the stairway side it is bounded by the undulating bench covered with tile-shard mosaic planned by Josep M. Jujol, acting as a balustrade, and on the mountain side by a retaining wall finished with large capitals made to look like palm trees.

View from Nature Square

From the side of Nature Square

Laundry Room Portico

Ramp and Casa Larrard

The Laundry Room Portico On the eastern side of the Greek Theatre square there is an original iron door which leads to where there used to be the gardens of Casa Larrard, the former mansion that Güell adopted as his own house, but which has since 1931 been a school. The route, which runs at a level higher than that of the house, passes through a pine grove with the portico backing onto a retaining wall made from unworked stone. The portico adopts the shape of a great wave atop slanting columns, with a double colonnade that acts as a buttress. It is one of the finest examples of the organic architecture upheld by Gaudí. The same meaning, at once structural and aesthetic, can be appreciated in the spiral ramp which takes visitors down to the house, at the end of the path.

Souvenir shop	Casa del Guarda	View from one of the windows of Casa del Guarda
The entrance and the porter's lodge pavilions The main entrance to Park Güell is on the south side, on Carrer d’Olot, from which visitors can enjoy the spectacular view of the stairway with the hypostyle room. The wall of the park is made of rustic stone topped with ceramic tiling and medallions bearing the name of Park Güell. The iron gates, designed in the shape of palm leaves, do not form part of the original plan, but came from Casa Vicens. To either side are the two pavilions that form the porter’s lodge. The one to the left was the one actually used as a porter’s lodge, with a waiting room and telephone booth, while the one to the right was the porter’s residence, whence the name Casa del Guarda, though it is today part of the Barcelona History Museum. Both have very beautiful roofs, built with the traditional Catalan clay tiles covered with “trencadís”, a mosaic made of tile shards.

Dragon Stairway and Hypostyle Room

Tiles at the bottom of the staircase

The Dragon Stairway From the entrance esplanade a twin flight of steps soars up, flanked by two walls with merlons that form terraces under which there are two grottos. The one to the right was used for keeping the horses and is supported by a magnificent conical central column. The stairway is divided into three sections, along which the water from a fountain runs, once supplied from the tank under the hypostyle room. On the first landing are some capricious shapes like goblins, while halfway up the steps is the emblem of Catalonia and further up the dragon, or salamander, covered with decorative tile-shard mosaic which has become the most popular image of the park. On the last flight of steps, sheltered under the hypostyle room, is a Greek-theatre shaped bench.

The Hypostyle Room  The great entrance stairway leads to the Hypostyle Room, which was designed to be the market for the estate. It is made up of 84 striated columns inspired in the Doric order. The outermost ones slope in an undulating movement clearly contrary to the rules of classical composition, while reinforcing a perception of their structural role. The colonnade is crowned by an architrave on which the undulating bench is placed. A conduit running inside it collects the rainwater that filters down from the square, sending it on to an underground tank, which has as the stairway dragon’s mouth as its overflow. Inside the room the absence of columns in some sections creates spaces that simulate three naves, like a great church. The ceiling is formed of small domes constructed using the traditional technique of clay bricks decorated with original tile-shard mosaics made by Josep M. Jujol, one of Gaudí’s assistants.

The Austria Gardens
What we now know as the Austria Gardens was one of the zones to be used as plots in the estate. When the Park Güell was turned into a public park, however, the zone was used as a municipal plant nursery. This part of the precinct has a completely different look to the rest of the park, and it got its name through a donation of trees from Austria in 1977. The garden has good views, and from its centre the two houses that were built in Eusebi Güell's time can be seen: the one belonging to lawyer Martí Trias i Domènech, planned by architect Juli Batllevell, and the estate show home, by Francesc Berenguer, which was finally acquired by Gaudí as his home, and which is now the Gaudí House-Museum.

The Roadways, Paths and Viaducts Outside the monumental zone of the central part of the park, running east towards the Carretera del Carmel exit, is the Pont de Baix, bridge, the first of the viaducts of the network of paths that help overcome the topography and connect the various parts of the park. Gaudí planned three viaducts with a width of five metres, snaking their way up the mountain, to lead carriages from the main entrance on Carrer d’Olot up to the high part of the estate, the Turó de Tres Creus (Three Crosses Hill). They are known as the Pont de Baix, the Pont del Mig and the Pont de Dalt (lower, middle and high bridges), names that already appeared on the first postcards of the park. They are suspended on a structure of sloping columns and vaults made from unhewn stones taken from the site itself. On their upper parts, the balustrades are crowned by plots with vegetation. The other large arterial roadway in the estate is the transversal road, ten metres wide, which connects the Carretera del Carmel with the Sant Josep de la Muntanya exit, running around the great square from above. Gaudí also planned three metre-wide paths for people on foot and shortcuts with steps and slopes allowing direct access to the various plots.

Gaudi House Museum (admission not included in ticket)

We stayed for 2 hours in the park and it was worth it, although we haven't really explored much of the free zone yet (makes it one of the reasons to come back here).