Sagrada Familia: tickets, guided tours and how to get there

The Sagrada Familia is an expiatory temple: it is paid for by donations and visitors' tickets, hence more than a century of construction. The first stone was laid in 1882 to a neo-Gothic design by Francisco de Paula del Villar, and the following year the commission passed to a young Antoni Gaudí, who reworked it and devoted the rest of his life to it until his death in 1926.

Gaudí designed three facades, the Nativity, the Passion and the Glory, and eighteen towers dedicated to the apostles, the evangelists, the Virgin Mary and Jesus. The Nativity facade is the only one built in the architect's lifetime; the Passion facade was sculpted by Josep Maria Subirachs from 1987 onwards, following his drawings. Inside, the columns branch out like trees and carry the vaults without flying buttresses, while the stained glass washes the nave in blues and greens in the morning and reds in the afternoon.

Pope Benedict XVI consecrated it as a basilica in 2010. The Nativity facade and the crypt have been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2005, and in 2026, the centenary of Gaudí's death, the Tower of Jesus made it the tallest church in the world.