Sagrada Familia Tower Or No Tower

[ConnieInNewJersey]

I am going to Barcelona in April. I was planning to do the Sagrada Familia and a tower with a guide. I have a 3 hour walking tour that ends at 2PM and I just found out to do the Guide tour I would need to book a 4:00PM tour of Sagrada Familia. If I skip the guide and tower I can do a later visit to the cathedral. I have the following questions:

 

Is this too ambitious for my last day in Barcelona?

Will I be too tired after the walking tour to do the Tower? If not which tower should I do - Passion or Nativity?

Is the tower worth the extra time and 400 stairs walk?

Edited March 2, 2015 by ConnieInNewJersey

[4774Papa]

I am going to Barcelona in April. I was planning to do the Sagrada Familia and a tower with a guide. I have a 3 hour walking tour that ends at 2PM and I just found out to do the Guide tour I would need to book a 4:00PM tour of Sagrada Familia. If I skip the guide and tower I can do a later visit to the cathedral. I have the following questions:

 

Is this too ambitious for my last day in Barcelona?

Will I be too tired after the walking tour to do the Tower? If not which tower should I do - Passion or Nativity?

Is the tower worth the extra time and 400 stairs walk?

Not sure when you have to be back at the ship, so you could do a 4pm tour?

I assume that you will be there overnight.

 

We do a lot of walking tours and were in our mid-sixties (still sixties) when we visited Sagrada Familia and did the tower.

 

Four of us walked from Las Ramblas to Sagrada, did the cathedral and the tower. We took a taxi back. Still, we did fine.

 

When we did the tower that was a bit of a wait, but we went up to the observation point in the tower via elevator. We then walked down the stairs to the main level.

 

I thought the tower was worth the wait, although the main thing is to see the inside of the cathedral.

[marazul]

You might want to double check the times. According to the website, the last tour in English is at 3:00 (15:00) in April.

[Turtles06]

OP: I'm not quite sure I understand your time constraints or whether you'll be overnighting in Barcelona on the day you are talking about, so I'll just say that I found it worthwhile to go up into the Nativity Facade tower (I can't speak to the Passion Facade tower, as we did not go up that). It's the facade on which Gaudi actually worked, so you'll be up close and personal with his work as well as getting a great view from the top.

 

When we visited (five years ago), you took an elevator up and then had to walk down from this tower (which made it a little less popular than the Passion Facade tower, where you took an elevator both ways). Not sure what the deal is now, but if you still walk down, unless you have a problem with a narrow circular stone staircase, and assuming you have sufficient time to spend seeing the exterior and interior from the ground (and assuming it's not a huge wait, and depending on what else you'd do with that time instead), I think it's worth it. That's just me speaking personally for myself, YMMV.

 

Have a great trip!

 

(view from Nativity Facade tower, by turtles06)

Edited March 2, 2015 by Turtles06

[ConnieInNewJersey]

Yes I am staying overnight in Barcelona. Thanks for you input!:)

[cruisePAC]

We visited La Sagrada Familia in July 2014. We did a self-guided audio tour of the church, then had a scheduled time to see the Passion Façade.

I would recommend either a guided tour or an audio tour. There are intricate areas of the sculptures that I would have missed had they not been pointed out to me. I would definitely recommend going up one of the towers. You get an awesome view of Barcelona as well as areas of the church that you can't otherwise. We took the elevator up and had the option of 1.) taking the elevator down or 2.) taking the stairs down. We chose to take the stairs. There were a lot of stairs! We took breaks and stopped at small outpouching baclonies. By the time we got down to the main level, our quadriceps were screaming and in spasm.

Photos just don't do justice to this place. It's big and amazing and beautiful! Take time to take it all in.