Barcelona

Day 10

Cruise Day #6 - Barcelona. Spain

We awoke early at 6:00 am to watch the ship gently pass through the entrance to the huge shipping port of Barcelona. I fetched some coffees as Kelly hit the shower in anticipation of our day ahead. We grabbed a nice healthy breakfast and headed out of the docking area and walked to the World Trade Center about 25 minutes away. There we walked up and almost like magic, we climbed aboard the hop on, hop off (HOHO) Bus of Barcelona City Tours (Greyline). Kelly had pre-booked us so all we had to do was show the printed receipt and we were on.

View as we leave the ship towards town.

They do two routes of the city... Orange that took you west and Green that took you east. You can hop on or off at any of several stops. You had an audio tour as the bus moved through the various sections of town as well as free WiFi access (although the sign in was in Spanish!) so we didn't bother:-) We grabbed the Orange bus to start with and went along for about an hour and a half before getting of at La Rambia to do some sightseeing and look some for lunch. Amazing views as we traversed the city, the Olympic Stadium, Placa' Espanya and the Barcelona Football Club!

The Venetian Towers and the entrance to the 1929 Worlds Fair.

At Placa Catalonya

Antoni Gaudi lived here!

 We settled on a small restaurant called La Boqueria that served up Tapas and enjoyed various cuts of meats and cheeses. We even had a bottle of red wine to go along with the traditional food. Fantastic! Right across the street from the restaurant was the St Josep Market that had amazing displays of products for sale. Kelly would have spent the day there but after six candy shops, eight meat shops and seven seafood shops I was pretty much done!

Entrance to the Market

Amazing colors... and candy!

One one many Seafood vendors.

Meat shop with an amazing selection.

Back on the HOHO bus for a ride on the Green line that took us to our primary destination the Sagrada Familia. This incredible structure, still under construction since 1882, is an eclectic collection of designs from various people. It all comes together in this ongoing masterpiece of design and art. We were simply amazed.

We walked back to the main street and caught our HOHO bus down to the Trade Center. We hoofed it along and arrived at our ship with a few minutes to spare. Yes a full day for sure! Even watched a small yacht sail in... that needed a pilot on board!! Go ahead... google "Lady Moura" and see what 200 million can buy you! The name on the side is 24K Gold!! Read and see more pictures about this mega yacht here

Lady Moura cruises by us.

We made our way back on board our ship at 16:26... four minutes to spare then it was up to the Sky Bar for a sail away drink before dinner.

We relaxed and then entered a roulette tournament in the casino. Buy in was 10 dollars and we had a great time. For several rounds Kelly was the chip leader but was knocked out at the end. Great fun and entertaining as well.

We watched a great show of lighting of to the Northeast from our balcony before retiring to our beds.... we are done! The storm raged on and our ship was engulfed in cloud, lightning and rain for several hours.