Inside La Sagrada Família at Last

La Sagrada Família yesterday, and I'm still not sure how to talk about it. We went in during golden hour and just stood there for a while, necks craned. The columns branch near the top like trees and the ceiling closes over them in stone stars, so the whole nave reads as a forest you've wandered into rather than a building someone made. One side of the church glows red and orange through the glass, the other blue and green, and the color lands on the columns themselves, so even the stone shifts as you walk.

Afterward we circled the outside. The Passion facade is a different animal entirely — Subirachs' figures are all hard angles, the crucifixion carved like it was cut with a blade. Above everything, the new cross on the Jesus tower catches the sun, with the star of the Virgin Mary tower beside it.

Gaudí knew he'd never see it finished and built anyway. Perhaps humanity's greatest achievement? I came out believing it.