Sagrada familia | Mediterranean Sea

I climb the steeply spiraling stairs up 342 steps in a circular passageway that is less than two feet wide in places. Hoofing up the vertical helix, the turns of the tower give me a chance to contemplate the twists of Gaudí's imagination. There are narrow windows and little parapet balconies to create my own juxtapositions of his wide-ranging art. I can see details up close - like a six-foot conch seashell and a snail, which are his contemporary gargoyles. I can also read phrases like Sursam corda ("Lift up your hearts"), brightly colored saints' names, and key concepts like Sacrificia in large red letters. It reminds me that Gaudí worked on the Sagrada Familia for 43 years of his life, living monastically the last 12 years, dedicated solely to this monument.

In a test of faith for any claustrophobic, I must climb single file, and every person up the line who pauses to pose for his or her perfect picture creates a stop. As I wait, I think about how Gaudí had to build in stops and starts because of politics, his other amazing projects, and because of the commitment that this "cathedral for the poor" would be funded only through "alms and donations."

"The top" is a short walkway between towers, with people going up one tower and down the other. It feels like I am in a transitional aerial epicenter with gorgeous views of Barcelona's bold architecture, embracing mountains and port, and the church all around and below me. It's hard to imagine that when the Sagrada Familia broke ground, it was on land outside the city walls, in a new district called the Eixemplo. Gaudí intended the towering building to be "a lighthouse, the first thing sailors see when coming into port." Now, even without all the lights inside that he planned, it is a monument by which tourists can navigate the city. And I wonder if Gaudí ever imagined that hundreds of thousands of nonsailors would see the Mediterranean Sea from his towers.