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Meet Piper, one of our travel experts for Spain.
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Piper is the founder of honeymoon specialty travel company Remarkable Honeymoons, and an award-winning agent with almost 30 years experience.
She's a Virtuoso agent, and winner of WeddingWire's Couples Choice awards every year from 2014-2022.
She is well versed in international travel after having visited dozens of countries in her career, and also through her studies abroad living in both Mexico and France. From the Orient Express, to tenting in Nepal, to flying the Concord, she's had many wonderful travel experiences.
Testimonials from Piper's clients:
"Piper made honeymoon planning simple. She quickly provided recommendations and quotes based on our specified interests for our honeymoon in Hawaii. She was able to secure us awesome hotel room upgrades, and provided great excursion and dinner recommendations. We had an amazing time and owe much of that to Piper!"
- William
Testimonials from Piper's clients:
"Had half a dozen trips set up through Piper before COVID hit. She has been a champ with cruises cancelling, flights changing, cancelled plans, rescheduling, etc. Have rebooked several for next year and she is always happy to help and very detail oriented. It is especially helpful to have someone you know will be "on the other end of the line" when travel plans change, flight connections are missed or changed. Piper is readily available to help you through it all!"
- Becky
Testimonials from Piper's clients:
"Working with Melanie and Piper was a dream! They were super helpful in building the trip of our dreams, helped us coordinate activities and provided excellent recommendations. We cannot recommend them enough!"
- Kay
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Basílica de la Sagrada Família
![Basílica de la Sagrada Família - Basílica de la Sagrada Família. Copyright Basílica de la Sagrada Família.]( "Basílica de la Sagrada Família - Basílica de la Sagrada Família. Copyright Basílica de la Sagrada Família.")
The expiatory church of La Sagrada Família is a work on a grand scale which was begun on 19 March 1882 from a project by the diocesan architect Francisco de Paula del Villar (1828-1901). At the end of 1883 Gaudí was commissioned to carry on the works, a task which he did not abandon until his death in 1926. Since then different architects have continued the work after his original idea.
The building is in the centre of Barcelona, and over the years it has become one of the most universal signs of identity of the city and the country. It is visited by millions of people every year and many more study its architectural and religious content.
It has always been an expiatory church, which means that since the outset, 132 years ago now, it has been built from donations. Gaudí himself said: 'The expiatory church of La Sagrada Família is made by the people and is mirrored in them. It is a work that is in the hands of God and the will of the people.' The building is still going on and could be finished some time in the first third of the 21st century.
Photo copyright Basílica de la Sagrada Família.
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Crossing Virtual Tour
Virtual tour copyright Basílica de la Sagrada Família.
Overview
The expiatory church of La Sagrada Família is a work on a grand scale which was begun on 19 March 1882 from a project by the diocesan architect Francisco de Paula del Villar (1828-1901). At the end of 1883 Gaudí was commissioned to carry on the works, a task which he did not abandon until his death in 1926. Since then different architects have continued the work after his original idea.
The building is in the centre of Barcelona, and over the years it has become one of the most universal signs of identity of the city and the country. It is visited by millions of people every year and many more study its architectural and religious content.
It has always been an expiatory church, which means that since the outset, 132 years ago now, it has been built from donations. Gaudí himself said: "The expiatory church of La Sagrada Família is made by the people and is mirrored in them. It is a work that is in the hands of God and the will of the people." The building is still going on and could be finished some time in the first third of the 21st century.
When work began on the church, in 1882, the architects, the bricklayers and the labourers worked in a very traditional way. When Gaudí took over the direction he was aware that the works were complex and difficult and tried to take advantage of all the modern techniques available. And so, among other resources, he had railway tracks laid with small wagons to transport the materials, brought in cranes to lift the weights and had the workshops located on the site to make the work easier.
Today, the building of the church follows Gaudí's original idea and, just as he himself did, the best techniques are applied to make the building work safer, more comfortable and faster. It is some time now since the old wagons gave way to powerful cranes, the old manual tools have been replaced by precise electric machines and the materials have been improved to ensure excellent quality in the building process and the final result.
The present Church Technical Office and the management are charged with studying the complexity of Gaudí's original project, doing the calculations and the building plans and directing the works as a whole.
Antoni Gaudí is one of the outstanding figures of Catalan culture and international architecture. He was born in Baix Camp (Reus, Riudoms), but it was in Barcelona that he studied, worked and lived with his family. It is also in the city that we find most of his work. He was first and foremost an architect, but he also designed furniture and objects and worked in town planning and landscaping, amongst other disciplines. In all those fields he developed a highly expressive language of his own and created a body of work that speaks directly to the senses.
During the last fifteen years of his life, Gaudí planned many parts of the church so that they could be built in the future. He did so combining geometrical forms, chosen for their formal, structural, luminous, acoustic and constructive qualities: hyperboloids, paraboloids, helicoids, conoids and ellipsoids. Many of these surfaces are ruled, which makes the construction easier. He assigned one of these forms to each type of the elements that make up the naves. With helicoids he invented a new column in the history of architecture: the double twisted column. He used hyperboloids for the openings of the windows and the vaults. With paraboloids he created linking surfaces on the vaults, the roofs and the columns of the Passion façade. He generated the knots or capitals of the main columns with ellipsoids. And earlier he had planned the building of the parish schools with conoids. Moreover, Gaudí developed a system of proportions applied to all the dimensions and elements of the church.
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