Day 10 – Part 2 – La Sagrada Familia

October 4th – Day 10 – Part 2 – Barcelona, Spain

La Sagrada Familia is one of Spain’s largest tourist attractions. The cathedral, designed by Catalan architect Antoni Gaudi began construction in 1882 and he worked on it until his death in 1926. The cathedral is still very much being built with an expected completion date of around 2025.

I saw a family take a photo similar to the above with their daughter in front of the cathedral and it looked like a fun opportunity, so I asked them to take the same picture with me in it. They smiled, and agreed pretty readily.

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Day 7 – Part 2 – San Sebastian, Spain – Hiking up to a giant Jesus Statue

October 1st – Day 7 – Part 2

One of my main draws to San Sebastian was the giant statue of Jesus on a hill overlooking La Concha Bay. The view sounded incredible in my travel guide, and I am always down for a hike.

After eating my first full meal in over 4 days, I ventured up toward the statue.

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Day 7 – Part 1 – Entering Spain

October 1st – Day 7 – Part 1

Irun

Irun, Spain is a town with a population of 61,000 located in northern Spain near the French border. It is a common hub when traveling from Paris.

I arrived in the Irun train station at about 7:30am with my eyes practically swollen shut from exhaustion. This was the first night train I had ever slept on, and it definitely didn’t lead to a restful slumber.

I tried replacing my limited French vocabulary of Bonjour, Parlez-vous anglais with it’s Spanish counterpart Hola, Habla ingles but communicating with the Irun train station workers was proving difficult, so I eventually just pulled out my Thomas Cook’s train guide and pointed at the train route to San Sebastian I was hoping to take. Luckily, a train heading for San Sebastian was about to leave the station so I barreled on board with my Eurail pass and passport clutched in my hands.

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