Antoni Gaudi

Today we learnt about Antoni Gaudi (1852 - 1926), the Spanish architect most famous for the Sagrada Familia church in Barcelona.  The Sagrada Familia is still under construction, having been started 132 years ago, and they now hope to have it finished some time in the late 2020's.  In reality for many years no progress was made at all, due to the Spanish Civil war, and to a lack of funds during hard times in Spain.  In the last 30 years or so they have picked up the pace again thanks to the millions of tourists who come to see it, and pay for access and for tours.

There is still plenty to be done.  It is only four years since the roof was closed in, and so far eight of the proposed 18 towers have been completed.  During Gaudi's lifetime only one tower was completed.  Also the missing main facade is to extend across an existing busy street and through an apartment block, which is causing a few issues with the city planners.

It is an amazing church, because particularly on the inside it looks completely different to the traditional churches and cathedrals of Europe, almost futuristic despite having been designed over 100 years ago.  The outside especially on the older east side is a bit overwrought with masses of detail, but inside the columns (fifty two of them, resembling palms) the roof (45 metres up) and the stained glass are beautiful.

Sagrada Familia - Afternoon sun through the windows

Looking directly up at the ceiling (45 metres up)

On the way homewards from the church we came to one of Gaudi's famous houses, the Casa Batllo.  It is a five-storey apartment, and just as unusual as the church.  It too is a major tourist attraction, and we did the tour and listened to the audio guide.  Inside there are almost no straight lines; every wall, door, window and ceiling is curved or sculpted in some way.

Inside Casa Batllo

On the roof - the chimneys!

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China and Russia

I've never been to Russia, and today we flew right across it.  But we didn't see a thing, because there was unbroken cloud cover extending from China all the way to the North Sea, shortly before we started descending into London.  That's about twelve hours of cloud, far below.  Our route took us over Finland, the Baltic Sea, across the southern tip of Sweden and over the North Sea.

We stopped over in Guanzhou, China - also known as Canton - but we saw very little there, too.  On the way in we flew through thick cloud and rain shortly before landing.  On the ground the air was so thick, either with mist or smog of a combination of the two, that we could not see beyond the perimeter of the airport.

Guanzhou - Not much to see out the windows

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Canberra

We had a short visit to Canberra in November. On Friday it was very sunny and hot at 35 degrees, the day I chose to walk up to the National War Memorial. Canberra is laid out on a grand scale despite having under 400,000 residents, with many wide open spaces, so once you leave the city centre it is a long way to walk anywhere. It was obviously designed with the car in mind. In walking to the War Memorial and back into the centre I covered about 6 km, and Capital Hill is the same distance in the other direction. During most of that walk I saw almost no other pedestrians, although once I got into the big shopping mall in the centre of North Canberra there were plenty of people there, out of the sun. There were also plenty of people visiting the War Memorial, but out on the suburban streets it was very quiet.

Navy Memorial on Anzac Avenue

The (actual) bridge of the ship HMAS Brisbane

On Saturday we relented and hired a car, which greatly increased our ability to get around the sights. Crossing the lake to South Canberra took us to the National Portrait Gallery, a short walk down to the lake's edge, and then on to a visit of Parliament House. There we joined a free tour led by a very sprightly 75-year old woman who delivered a great commentary. We saw the House of Representatives and the Senate, and finished with a visit to the roof, which is actually a grassy hill, dominated by a massive flag pole above. The views across Canberra are great from up there, although by that time it was windy and raining.

Brian and Ned Kelly's death mask

Flagpole atop Parliament Hill

On Sunday toured the National Musuem, which is a bit Te Papa-ish, then had lunch up the Telstra telecommunications tower on Black Mountain, from which you can see how the city sprawls across the landscape for miles. The flight each way was via Sydney to and from Wellington, with Qantas. I timed this photo of the Dash 8 wheel hitting the tarmac at Sydney perfectly!

National Museum

Telstra Tower on Black Mountain

Touchdown in Sydney

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