No European monument carries a wider gap between the photograph and the experience. From outside, the Sagrada Família is a famous building site; from inside, it is a forest of stone where the light changes colour through the hour, and it is the interior that justifies the ticket.

For a reader on a port call the rule is binary: with a timed ticket it is the anchor of the day; without one, it is a temptation to resist, because the façade alone does not repay crossing the city. Admission prices, seasonal hours and the current state of the central tower publish here only once confirmed against the basilica’s own channel.