This was our only full day in Barcelona, as they had changed the departure port to Tarragona, about 60 miles south, because Barcelona was starting to reduce the number of cruise ships there. We had a good breakfast at the hotel restaurant on the 23rd floor (included in our Viking extension), met with the Viking representative and got a lunch recommendation and dinner reservation from her. We had purchased a tour of Basilica de la Sagrada Familia when we were at home. We took a cab from the hotel to the recommended tapas restaurant around noon and had an excellent meal. We took another cab to La Sagrada Familia for an outstanding tour, one of the best we had on the trip. To say that the cathedral is magnificent is a big understatement. The cathedral is currently the largest unfinished Roman Catholic church. Designed by the Catalan architect Antoni Gaudi (1852–1926), his work on Sagrada Família is part of a UNESCO World Heritage Site. On 7 November 2010, Pope Benedict XVI consecrated the church and proclaimed it a minor basilica.

On 19 March 1882, construction of the Sagrada Família began under architect Francisco de Paula del Villar. In 1883, when Villar resigned, Gaudí took over as chief architect, transforming the project with his architectural and engineering style, combining Gothic and curvilinear Art Nouveau forms. Gaudí devoted the remainder of his life to the project, and he is buried in the crypt. At the time of his death in 1926, less than a quarter of the project was complete.

Relying solely on private donations, the Sagrada Família's construction progressed slowly and was interrupted by the Spanish Civil War. In July 1936, revolutionaries set fire to the crypt and broke their way into the workshop, partially destroying Gaudí's original plans, drawings and plaster models, which led to 16 years of work to piece together the fragments of the master model. Construction resumed to intermittent progress in the 1950s. Advancements in technologies such as CAD (Computer Aided Design) and Computerized Numerical Control (CNC) have since enabled faster progress and construction passed the midpoint in 2010. However, some of the project's greatest challenges remain, including the construction of ten more spires, each symbolizing an important Biblical figure in the New Testament. It was anticipated that the building would be completed by 2026, the centenary of Gaudí's death, but this has now been delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The basilica is not the cathedral church of the Archdiocese of Barcelona, as that title belongs to the Cathedral of the Holy Cross and Saint Eulalia (Barcelona Cathedral).

See https://www.uglyhedgehog.com/t-801137-1.html for the opening post of this series