Barcelona

The last, but definitely by no means the least, port of call in this marathon of port calling was Barcelona.  We were allowed a slight sleep in as we didn’t dock until 8am and unfortunately we only had a short day as all aboard time was 3.30pm.  Barcelona deserves a lot more time than this but we had to target our key sights and forget about the rest.

This ship, once it has your money for the ride, then tries to target you any way they can to eek out those extra dollars from your pocket.  Most of it is a wrought and targets the fear in folk that this is the only alternative & if they don’t take it they will be stuck.  In this case I’m talking about the shuttle buses from the ship into town.  In some ports they supply free of charge a bus to take you to the port gates which in some cases can be a trek & you are not usually allowed to walk anyway. For our last three ports of call we received an order form in our cabin to book the bus from the ship into near the centre of town for a pricey sum of $8 p/p one way, so for two of us would be $32 for each port.  Turns out it’s either a very easy walk into town or you can take a taxi for 5 euro & with 4 people it’s a no brainer.

In Barcelona it was only a 2 km walk, over a huge bridge that could open up to allow big ships through and into the bottom part of the city where a very tall monument to Columbus stands.  From there 3 of us, Jo, Jon & myself decided to catch the hop on hop off bus (Jon was banned from sitting at the open side of the bus) while the others were going to ramble along the shopping promenade of Las Ramblas before taking the bus. This promenade is lined with cafes, flower stalls, trinket stalls and the inevitable street performers mainly the statues, all painted up and meant to be standing still.  We saw a magnificent golden angel but she was sitting down talking on her mobile phone.  Jo commented that she was still connected to earth but she may have been talking to the man himself.

This bus is a great way of getting an idea of the feel & layout of a city, gives information on the different sights & history and gets you to the most important places with relatively no hassles.  What we wanted to see the most was of course the Gaudi creations.  As the bus went down the streets we did catch a couple of glimpses of what could be no other than a Gaudi design.  He must have been the most unusual man and I don’t know what he was on but it must have been strong.  I can’t really describe what they looked like but he didn’t like straight or angular lines so every thing is curved and the colours were iridescent. I read a description that he combined art nouveau & modernismo but that would give you no idea of what it looks like.  I can only likened it to a gingerbread house or something out of Disneyland. 

 

His biggest passion and life long work was a church he designed and started building in 1883 called La Sagrada Familia.  He worked on it for over 40 years then was killed by a tram in 1926 so here it remains, still unfinished.  He didn’t leave any notes or plans so they are now trying to finish it how they think it should be done.  It has cranes all around it and the top turrets have a sheathing over them so you can’t see what the look like but you can see the rest which is amazing to say the least.  There is so much detail that you can stand there for hours studying it.  The bell towers are covered in Venetian mosaics, it has a nativity-themed façade with doorways representing faith, hope & charity and it even has a Christmas tree above the front door.  Jo & I thought we would go inside as it was only 13 euros so Jon said he would meet us outside in half an hour.  The queue we joined was only short so we thought that would be fine.  We got to the front & found out it was for internet booked tickets only and had to join the other queue.  Ok, no problem we thought, we just had to find the end of it, so we walked from the front of it down the street to the corner, turned the corner and walked a whole block until the next corner, turned that corner and walked almost another block before we thought we didn’t really want to see it that much.  So the tip of the day is buy your ticket on the internet first otherwise buy a postcard.

The next stop was to see Guell Park, another Gaudi designed creation.  His original intention was to construct 60 homes around a garden park and decorate the area with mosaics & sculptures but falling under a tram brought that idea to a halt as well.  Still it was just amazing what he had done.  We had to walk up a steep hill to get to it and Jon was muttering that this better be worth it so I had my fingers crossed otherwise I could be in for an ear bashing.  Lucky for me that it was.  We came around the corner and there was this wonderland of gingerbread style gatehouses and steps leading up to all these columns with mosaics along the way & mosaics sculptures of a lizard and the head of some animal.  The columns up the top were holding up a wavy ceiling with mosaic patterns in the hollows of the wave.  If you climbed up the stairs next to this you got to the roof which was a large flat area with curved seating around the edges with the backrest done all in mosaics.  It was such a lot of work and so incredible.  The gardens were a maze of tropical flowers & lavender all in bloom giving great colour to an already colourful place.  Also there were the mobile markets, our darker coloured friends with myriad of souvenirs, handbags etc but when someone blew the whistle they were gone in 10 seconds flat only to relay it all out again further up the top.  One lot we saw had only just started laying it all out when the whistle blew again. They must get sick of that carry on.

The bus then took us past the big football stadium and up Montjuic mountain with it’s sweeping views over the city and where the Olympic stadium is.  The diving stadium would have been the most spectacular for the spectators as they would have been sitting with their backs to the mountainside and overlooking the city while the divers jumped in the air in front of them, what a view!

When we finally got off the bus we just had enough time to race down Las Rambles a little way, buy a big bottle of Sangria and look longingly at the cafes with the big plates of paella & tapas and wish we just had a little more time to sit & enjoy the ambience but it was a short day and had to be back by 3.30, not even our normal 6.30, that would have given us enough time but no, we had to make tracks for Lisbon so it was goodbye to Barcelona or rather was it Austa la wago, as we will be back.