April 25-6 Barcelona

Wednesday 25 Barcelona

We nosed in about 5am. The disembarkation was remarkably stress free – no deadlines to clear the cabin. We chose to wheel our own bags off and had the easiest time. We took a taxi which we had been told would cost about E8 but cost double that because of “Supplementals”. We were  5 hours early for checkin but we found our way to the hostel and happened to have somebody come out just in time for us to pop into the building. A lady in the foyer told us the hostel was on the 1^st floor, which was conveniently open. So we parked on the couch until the staff woke up about 9.30 and until we could get into our dorm. Dorm . . . eeeew!

By then I was ready for a nap while J went exploring, looking for Gaudi architecture.

Casa Mila or La Pedrera

Casa Batilo

Not Gaudi, but beautiful - 1 of 4.  I just love the detail in the architecture.

We went out to get money, had lunch at Subway and wandered down to the port, where Norwegian Epic was still tied up and evidently staying overnight.  Our hostel is very close to the Ramblas, the main pedestrian street of the city. We wandered the length down to the port, enjoying the numerous street artists posing as painted statues and the general ambience.

Chipmonks?  In pet shop on Ramblers

This was cool, especially when he moved and scared passers by

The foreshore was very interesting, including a replica of the first boat to circle the globe in the mid 1600s. The original boat had had to round the Horn and the Cape of Storms at the tips of S America and S Africa respectively. The replica had the luxury of taking the canals instead and had backup engines and all the electronic navigational equipment.

Nao Victoria

Christopher Colombus pointing out to sea

For dinner we lapsed straight back into the Baguette routine and had no difficulty in falling asleep.   

Thursday 26

Slow start about 8.30. Found Stephie on Skype and talked her through testing the power protector switches. She asked Alyssa if she wanted to talk to Granny and she immediately ran off to the computer. When it emitted the distinctive Skype beep she was up on the chair looking for Granny and calling Hello. More baguette for breakfast then we settled into the process of booking places on the ferry to Rome (separate cabins for men and women) and then a room in a B&B waiting for the boat to leave. After lunch (more baguette) we set about trying to organise getting ourselves around Spain while leaving the bulk of the luggage behind. Plan 2 was to stay in Barcelona and find another hostel. This all took some time and we ended up booking 5 days in a nearby hostel, which we discovered when we tried to pop in for a visit does not open until tomorrow. So we will be their first guests. Not ideal but no real choice. Only 5 of the hundreds of hostels had a vacancy for all 5 days, and some of those had horrific reviews.

We walked for about 6 hours in a large loop that took in some of the unique buildings around Barcelona. Wait for the pictures. Finally, we ended up at a Gothic cathedral designed by Gaudi, sitting on the steps listening to a busker playing absolutely beautiful violin music, including several of the Four Seasons pieces by Vivaldi. He was so good we dropped a couple of Euros in his case.

Torre Agbar

Don't know who she is but she sure did shimmer.

What a mammoth!

We knocked up a chicken stirfry, remarking again just how cheap so many food items are here compared to Aus. I tend to use bananas as a litmus test and they were under $2/kg. Delicious mandarins were 99c and 1.5l water 30c. Grog is ridiculously cheap. Who is taking all the money in Aus?