In my 75 years, having lived in 23 homes and traveled for work and pleasure most of my adult life, I have seen a lot of churches. Nothing can compare with the Holy Family Cathedral by Antoni Gaudi (1852-1926).

Gaudi was 26 years old and had one building on his resume when he was awarded the job of designing this cathedral. It is so grand and magnificent that it is not expected to be completed until 2084 after nearly 200 years. My youngest grandchild will be eligible for Social Security that year and my oldest will be 84 years old. I hope that they both get to see it.

Joe and I visited it today and I will not be able to do it justice in 100 blogs but I will attempt to describe this work in two. One for the exterior and the general plan and tomorrow, the magnificent interior.

The tiny scale model above shows you in grey those portions that have been completed and in the lighter color, those portions that have yet

to be completed. There will be three entrances to the cathedral, the first was dedicated to the birth of Christ, the second to the passion or death of Christ. These two entrances are open and completed. They will be the side entrances and they are pictured below.

The opposite side door is dedicated to the death of Christ. Photos are below:

The third door, which will be the main entrance to the cathedral, has not yet been started but will depict the resurrection. The doors for each of the completed entrances are equally beautiful as shown below:

The building is 90 meters long and 60 meters wide. When the tallest tower is completed, it will be 172.5 meters high making it the tallest church in the world and a half a meter higher than the nearest mountain.

There are a total of 18 towers that can be seen for miles. 12 that are dedicated to each of the apostles, four for the evangelicals (those who wrote the gospels) one tower for Mary, the mother of Jesus, and the central and tallest tower for Christ.

I will write about the interior of the building tomorrow.