Friday - Barcelona

Back on the ship now after spending the day in Barcelona. There’s so much to do and see here that we didn’t manage to do any of it justice. We had vouchers for the hop-on-hop-off bus but we had to walk quite a ways to get to the office to turn in our voucher, so we were a bit late in getting started. Our first stop was the gorgeous La Sagrada Família (Sacred Family) cathedral. We didn’t stop to take the tour but it’s just an amazing building. Construction’s been on-going since the late 1800s! I’ll have to research to see why it’s taken so long to complete. It’s so immense and right in the midst of the city, so my photos don’t really do it justice, but here’s my best one.


From there we went to Güell Park, home of the Casa-Museu Gaudi. This house is where Antoini Gaudi lived from 1906 to 1926. He was a heavy influence on the architecture of Barcelona. In fact Barcelona has a number of unusual buildings that reflect the influence of several prominent architects. While his designs are functional they seem to me to have a healthy dose of whimsy too, as is seen in this building at the entry to the park.


My favorite thing from the park, however, was this lizard fountain he designed. I don’t know if he actually painted it but I really liked it.

At this point we’d already spent half of our time, so after a bit of souvenir shopping on the way back to the bus we hopped on for a good long time. We drove past several tourist spots that looked interesting, but we just didn’t have the time to stop and explore. We also drove past FC Barcelona and a couple of the venues from the 1992 Olympic Games. We stayed on the bus until it got us back near the port where we disembarked and strolled up Las Ramblas, said to be one of the prettiest streets in the world. Traffic is very limited there and it is touristy but it was shady on a warm day and very pleasant. We made it back on one of the last shuttles, but in plenty of time to cast off.

Next up: The French Riviera