I believe it started in Barcelona, standing outside of the Sagrada Familia and looking at the line winding around the sides of the most famous site in the city. My first inclination was to find the end of the line and queue up – surely the wait would be worth it.  I’d been hearing about this landmark for years and didn’t want to miss seeing it up close.

I was in line with a friend who offered to walk to the front of the line to see how long it really was while I kept our place.  Sounded good to me so I held still while she went out exploring.  About 10 minutes later she returned, and unless she’d stopped for a sangria on the way back, I already knew it was going to be a very long wait.

Ultimately, we decided to duck out of line and check out some other sights that day with plans to return to the Sagrada Familia later that week when the lines would surely be shorter.  Well, for me, that day never came. I made a second attempt to see the church and although the lines were indeed shorter, they still spread much further around the church than I would have preferred.  Instead I choose to photograph the outside of the massive structure while repeating in my head like a mantra what a friend had told me: “the outside of Sagrada Familia is far more impressive than the inside”. That way I wouldn’t feel so bad about not going inside.

Maybe I should have gone inside, but the outside seemed pretty damn impressive.

Instead I chose to wander around Gaudi’s Park Guell. Same artist as the church, but i got to be outside.

It was a warm sunny day in Barcelona, and the idea of strolling around the city at my own pace seemed far more tempting than standing in a long line and jockeying for space among other tourists to take a few pictures that inevitably would include the back of someone’s head or an elbow or two.

I found my self in the same situation in other cities in Europe.  I spent hours wandering around the gardens of the Schonbrunn Palace in Vienna, but avoided the line to go inside the actual palace building.

The Gardens at Shonbrunn Palace in Vienna…I hear the inside of the palace is nice too.

I skipped out on the Anne Frank House and the Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam as well (I know, shameful).  I didn’t step foot inside one church or museum in Antwerp, Belgium either.

The looooong line outside the Anne Frank House….

…instead I chose to wander around Amsterdam’s canals…

…and partake in a little apple pie.

Is it possible that I’ve just become lazy and lackluster about travel?  Partially yes. After nearly 5 months of travel the inside of churches and fine arts museums are starting to all look the same through the lens of my Nikon camera.

But I think it also just comes down to how I like to explore a city.  Avoiding a long line is really just an excuse – if there’s something I truly want to see or experience, I’ll take the time and wait.  Its just that at this point, the list of things that I truly want to see is getting shorter and shorter. I’d much rather walk 5 miles around a city at my own pace, peering into shop windows and watching people go about their day than be stuck inside a museum or church. There are exceptions of course and there are exhibits I am happy I did make time for like the Damien Hurst exhibit at the Tate Modern and the tour of the Reichstag building in Berlin. I’m off to Paris in a few days and I don’t care how long the line is, I am definitely revisiting my favorite site, the Rodin Museum.

So have I turned into a lazy jaded traveler? I sure hope not as there is still quite of bit of this planet that I want to see.  It just may be that I see it from the streets and parks and cafes than from the inside of buildings and museums.