Wednesday
We were up at 6:30 this morning to finish packing and get breakfast. Disembarkation no later than 9:30. Actually we left about 8:30. Immigration was a formality and we were waved through customs. We met a couple from Kingston on the bus from the port to Las Ramblas who knew Barcelona and they showed us where to catch the subway. We misread the signs and went the wrong way so had to reverse our direction. Barcelona has a lot of diagonal streets and 5 or 6 roads entering an intersection. It took a while to find the hotel and we had to wait a while for a room to be ready.
After checking in we went to the city centre to pick up our tickets for the Hop-On/Hop-Off 2 day tour. We started with the ‘blue line’ trip and first got off at the ‘Sagrada Familia’ church. This tremendous structure has been under construction since the 1880s and it will be many more years till completion. Finances habe been one of the delays. We bought tickets for entrance and the audio tour after waiting in a very long, but fairly fast moving line. The inside is tremendous and I can’t describe it here. (Do a search on ‘Sagrada Familia inside’).
Next stop was ‘Parque Guell’. A beautiful park and I can only say, look at the photos which really don’t do it justice.
These two stops took up so much of the day that we were really beginning to get tired. We carried on and transferred to the ‘red line’ which had a stop not too far from our hotel at ‘Plaça de Espanaya’, From there we walked back to the hotel, about 10minutes getting back about 6 pm.
Before dinner I ran some errands, to find and electrical adaptor for the computer as our plug has a ground and our adaptor doesn’t. Then a bottle of wine and a 6 pack. Then back out for a corkscrew and bottle opener. After relaxing for a w hile we went out of a light supper.
26 April
Thursday
We headed out to ‘Plaça de Espanaya’ this morning to take the ‘red line tour’. Our first stop was ‘Poble Español’. It was built for the 1929 World’s Fair to show Spanish architecture and culture with the intention of clearing it out after. However it proved so popular it was continued after the fair. Franco used it as a prison and after his fall it was refurbished as a place for artisans to make and sell their crafts.
Our next stop was ‘Museo d’Historia de Catalunya’ on the waterfront. However it was about 1 pm and we stopped for tapas. The museum was very good, and since we are over 65 years, free. We spent over 2 hours exploring it’s many exhibits. A group of school children were going through about the same time and an instructor, from the museum I think, was instructing them, sometimes with hands on demonstrations. We got as far as the 18th century and were getting museumed out, so decided to leave and have an ice cream cone before reboarding the bus. We switched to the green line but didn’t get off. When we connected again with the red line we switched, got seats near the rear, took off our shoes and relaxed on the ride back to ‘Plaça de Espanaya’. Back in the hotel we relaxed until about 7:30 then went out for dinner.
We promised you some photos when reached land and had a better connection. Here are some, finally.
View of 3 decks at once, decks 5, 6, and 7
Eva and I with 2 of the performers in Cirque de Dreams
At the stern on deck 15.
Eva in our cabin after we moved to a balcony from an inside cabin.
The Norwegian Epic docked at the Azores
Dick at 'Fire Lake', (A dormant volcano) in the Azores
Results of a fruit and vegetable carving demonstration on deck 5
Dick, Eva, and our Chef at the Teppanyaka Restaurant on board the Epic
Barcelona, one of the Hop-on/Hop-off busses
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