Barcelona
The ship arrived Monday morning at Barcelona, the last stop of our 39 day cruise. As usual, Barbara and I were the first off the ship to take our own walking tour of one of the most interesting cities in the world, if by interesting you mean architecturally and by the reputation it has for pickpockets and muggings. The former is well earned, the latter is ridiculous. But the ship's destination lecturer--the Professor of GIS who had studied geology, according to his CV--thought that talking about how people can be mugged in Barcelona would enhance the guests' experience. Therefore, Barbara and I were the only guests who started on an early ambulation of this wonderful city. (The others who didn't purchase one of the ship's tours opted for the red "hop-on/hop-off" bus which was charging 35 euros per person to show what traffic jams look like up close)
With map in hand, we headed from the port to the Columbus statue. Barcelonians (?) claim a connection to Columbus, but the statue has the famous explorer/plunderer/poor or great navigator pointing at Algeria. We rambled up the entire length of the very long Ramblas pedestrian street and made our way to some of the most famous and interesting buildings. First two pseudo-nouveau (or is it post-modern pseudo?) buildings, one decorated in an umbrella motif which was curious since it hasn't rained in Southern Spain in quite a while. (The weather forecast on TV discussed that the seacoast was dry as the rain in Spain falls mainly on the plateau, or something like that). Then the famous kind of blue Casa Batllo, perhaps Antonio Gaudi at his most restrained, so to speak. Then further to the Casa Mila, perhaps Gaudi at his most, uh, melted, and then finally at the La Sagrada Familia. This is Gaudi's most famous work, a really big church that still isn't finish and the one where he was living in the construction debris when at 120 years old (something like that) he wondered away and was killed by a trolley car. But that was some time ago.
We returned to the ship to pack as we were set for a 5 am transfer Tuesday morning to the Barcelona Airport and the quick as a fox flights via Frankfurt to Denver. We arrived home at 5:45 pm and are walking into walls.
A Video of Our Accommodations On-Board Silver Wind
I've just posted to Facebook a video of our suite on Silver Wind and a look at the sights and sounds 500 miles out to sea between Namibia and Ghana as we approached the Equator.
https://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=3024303005398¬if_t=video_processed
More in a few days when the jet lag has subsided. Thanks for following along so far.
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