Art of Travel: Paris to Madrid

Day Nineteen

Sleep was broken again last night. The woman in the tent next door kept getting sick , well going through the motions in any case. At a quarter past five while it was still dark some French twat fired up his bike and turned the throttle on full for a minute or so (I thought it was going to blow) and then proceeded having a shouting match with the rudely awoken telling him to shut le phuc up. Thirty minutes later a large group of French bikers close to me got up to breakfast loudly and pack to leave. I ended up lying in my tent longer than intended and pottered around slowly with my breakfast and ablutions which resulted in me not setting off on my ride to Barcelona until near on mid day.

To be honest it did not matter much because all I had planned to do was replace the ball bearings which had started to crunch to pieces on the previous evenings ride back to Masnou, buy a ticket to Madrid, and go see Gaudi’s Sagrada Familia, all of which I achieved in time to get back to the camp for a swim before the pool was shut.

In each of the old cathedrals I have visited since this trip began (Paris, Girona, Barcelona) I have looked at their interiors and wondered what it would have been like to watch them being constructed, how might the various stages of construction have been executed, and in what order. So it was fascinating to be given this insight as I made my way around the site of Gaudi’s Cathedral watching the men at work, reading the print on information boards and examining the artwork on display of the building designs. It is due to be completed in 2038 so it is feasible that I will still be alive and may be able to come back to Barcelona for its grand opening (actually, I think I would give the opening ceremonies a miss and avoid the crowds by visiting six months or so later)

 

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