That's How It Happened

The Sagrada Familia is the most wonderful, delerious, and frankly fantastical building I've ever seen. I was prepared for a spiny tower of kitsch, but actually it's beguiling, intriguing, maybe even overwhelming. In a little tapas bar on the street outside I saw a "living statue", dressed head-to-toe in a gold knight's outfit, but playing pinball and drinking a beer. That serves as an analogy for Barcelona's architecture. Utterly fabulous old buildings scattered incongruously next to acres of modern glass and steel. There are some fine modern buildings though, like the Torre Agbar, a beautiful shimmering spanish gherkin.