- Winter Escape 2017 - Sea Princess, Regal Princess, Hurtigruten Polarys: Barcelona

Barcelona, Spain

Our eta for Barcelona was 10am but due to strong cross currents and losing our time slot with the pilot our arrival was delayed to around midday. This meant that we had a late start but as the time to be back on board was not till 10.30pm it still gave us plenty of time to do what we wanted and let's face it our feet have been walking non stop now for the last 3 days!!

The only thing we had organised was that we had booked tickets for 3.30pm to go inside the Sagrada Familia.

We were off the ship by 12.30 and straight onto the Port shuttle costing 4 euros for a return ticket.... much better value than the Princess offered shuttle at $11 return.

The shuttle dropped us at the Christopher Columbus statue which is at the bottom of the La Rambla.

I had downloaded a walking map before we left home so we followed that through the Gothic Quarter to the Cathedral of Santa Eulalia and then onwards to Sagrada Familia. The walk was quite a long way and the plan was to get there at least 30 mins before our time so that we could sit and have a cold drink which we did.

La Sagrada Familia is regarded as Gaudi's masterpiece and has been under construction since 1882.

We had no problems fast tracking any queues with our tickets and entered the church straight away. The tickets I bought online were seniors tickets and included entry to the Nativity Tower for views over the city. For anyone interested in visiting our schedule time was 3.30pm for the church and 4.30pm for the Tower. The timing worked perfectly giving us enough time to explore the church and then to sit before climbing the tower which was partly done by elevator but did require walking down around 400 steps in a narrow spiral staircase. The whole experience was well worth the visit as previously we had only seen the Church from the outside.

Our next mission was to walk back to the top of the La Rambla with the view of eventually meeting up with our buddies who had spent the day further afield to Montserrat to have dinner and a Sangria!

On the way we passed Casa Mila (La Pedrera) another Gaudi masterpiece of nature. As the lines were not long we ventured in at 16.50 euro each for seniors. Our tickets included an audio guide which was handy. Widely known as La Perera as its rough outer appearance resembles a stone quarry. It has an undulating facade with shapes taken from nature. Antoni Gaudi (1852-1926) is ranked among the great geniuses of universal architecture and unfortunately was hit by a tram which eventually killed him. What an amazing unassuming talented genius he was.

When we finished at La Pedrera we were on a mission to find our friends. We made our way down La Rambla which was difficult as it was a Saturday night and now about 8.30pm.... there were people everywhere!!

We eventually found our friends and enjoyed a BIG cold drink and an authentic paella. What more could you want after a hot tiring day exploring the beautiful city of Barcelona!

After being watered and fed and watching the ever changing passing parade we made our way back to get the port bus to the ship arriving on board with about 10 minutes to spare!

Sail away was at 11pm so a group gathered on the back deck to wave goodbye to Barcelona. Another great day in port!

A well earned and much needed sea day then Cadiz, Spain.

Quick Facts

Founded: 300BC

Region: Barcelona is on the northeastern sires of Spain and not far from the French border.

Population: 1.63 million (2014)

Climate: just about perfect all year round!

Language: Catalan and Spanish

Currency: Euro