Seeing Gaudi’s Most Important Works in One Day
Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links, which earn me a small commission from bookings at no extra cost to you. Thank you for reading and supporting my blog!
With only one day in Barcelona as a cruise port, I was determined to see all the highlights of Antoni Gaudi’s work since they can only be found there.
Gaudi’s use of color, inspiration from nature, and touch of surrealism, makes his works transcend from mere architecture to being true art. He completely pushed the borders of typical design for his era, and makes our modern minimalism seem overly serious.
There is not a square inch of any of his creations that are not given a touch of whimsy and interest, which makes it exciting to walk through spaces that even he didn’t get to see to fruition. In short, Gaudi is not gaudy, but a celebration of bold, decoration, and fantasy.
Park Guell
First stop of the day was an early morning stop at Park Guell. I suggest getting there around 8 am like we did and just taking a taxi to get there, because we felt like we had everything to ourselves. It took most of the most of the morning to really take in everything calmly.
Sagrada Familia
A quick taxi ride and we were then in front of the famously unfinished Sagrada Familia Cathedral. We pre-purchased the ticket and audioguide (pretty good) and got in easily. Everything about this building is overwhelming in the best way and I loved it. Don’t miss the small museum that is towards the exit and details the building’s inspiration and construction.
Another absolute must is stopping into one of the small restaurant-bars for tapas. Tapas are small plates that are meant to be shared. We love the concept since we always like to try a little bit of everything, so that was our lunch stop.
Casa Batllo & Las Ramblas
We walked it off by heading to Las Ramblas which begins with the street of discord. There you’ll find a residential example of Gaudi’s work, Casa Batllo. Las Ramblas is a busy shopping street where you should mind your valuables because of local pickpockets, but a Barcelona classic experience nonetheless.
We then caught the port bus that stops near the Christopher Columbus statue at the end of Las Ramblas to head back to our cruise ship.
