Barcelona, Spain

This morning, at around 7am, we arrived in Barcelona, the Capital city of Catalonia and the second largest city in Spain.

We hadn’t been given any tour escorting duties today, so we had the day to ourselves; neither Tracey or myself have been to Barcelona before, so we were looking forward to the prospect of exploring somewhere new.

After a leisurely breakfast, we headed for the terminal building, where we were just in time to catch the free shuttle bus that would take us into the city. The first thing that struck us was just how huge, and busy, the cruise port is; we were told that there would be 5 other ships in today.

The shuttle dropped passengers off outside the customs building, where we picked up a map from a little Tourist Information kiosk and made a rough plan of where we wanted to go.

Our route took us up one of the most popular streets in Barcelona, La Rambla, which was bustling with tourists and folks trying to sell things to the tourists. Turning off from this main drag, down one of the many side streets leading through the Gothic Quarter, brought us to the Cathedral. Catedral de Santa Eulalia is dedicated to Barcelona’s patron saint, whose remains were transferred there in 878. Inside, the building was suitably impressive (and entrance was free), and the cloisters were inhabited by several noisy, honking geese.

From the Cathedral, we headed towards The Arc de Triomf, which is situated at the top end of a long pedestrianised street reminiscent of The Mall, in London. Like its French counterpart, the structure is exactly as you’d expect; a large, ornate archway. Very photogenic, and clearly very popular with visitors.

After a brief refreshment stop at a small cafe, we finally arrived at one of Barcelona’s primary tourist attractions, the Temple Expiatori de la Sagrada Familia, which is one of several architectural examples of work by Antoni Gaudi.

The building is difficult to describe. Certainly, it’s impressive, and big, with many towers that reach high up into the sky. To say it is ornate would be a massive understatement; it has arches and windows, random words embedded in its walls and hundreds of figures literally plastered all over it, yet it also seems oddly worn, like it is in semi-meltdown – a bit of a dog’s dinner, if I’m honest. The building was never completed; Gaudi was run over by a tram in 1926 before he could finish his mega-creation. Huge cranes appear to be working to finish it off; hopefully he left them some clear, easy-to-follow plans… either way, I can’t get past the suspicion that Gaudi must have been stark raving bonkers.

With all-aboard time being 2:30pm and the last shuttle back to the ship being 2pm, we started to make our way back to the pick-up point. Even if we’d wanted to, we coudn’t go in Gaudi’s building (which by all accounts is as bonkers inside as it is on the outside). Tickets have to be bought online (for 29 euros per person), and when I logged into the page to do so, I was told that tickets had been sold out for today (so, that’s one for a future visit).

We stopped-off at another church on our way back and paid the princely sum of 10 euros to go in and take a look. It was interesting enough, but not necessarily worth the expense when compared to the free entrance for the Cathedral.

We’re back on board now, and the ship is heading towards our next destination, Cannes, where we are due to arrive tomorrow.

I must say that I rather liked Barcelona. It’s a big city, but it felt relaxed and not quite so manic as some cities of similar size that we’ve visited. Hopefully we will return one day and spend a little more time there.