Day 48 Barcelona

Day 48 – Barcelona – Monday 2/7/12

Weather – Fine and Sunny 23C - 26C

Sunrise – 6.22am

Sunset – 9.28pm

Time difference - minus 8 hours ex Sydney

Encantado Barcelona !!!

What a lovely day in the Spanish sunshine. Today was just perfect for wandering the city of Barcelona as it was a fine and sunny day, with a light cool breeze. And a wandering we did !!. We elected to walk the 2.5 miles from the ships berth to the city, for two reasons. Firstly, the Princess shuttles which cost $8 per person each way were not in port, and apparently they were not going to be until 9amish. Secondly we were told by others that had been here before that it is quite walkable, and we wanted to continue to build up the leg strength again. We had done a lot of walking this week, but we had a rest day at sea tomorrow, so a walking we went..and lots of it, about 10 miles.

Apparently it had rained heavily most of yesterday, so are luck with the weather holds good. We were expecting the locals to be buoyant and excited about winning the Euro soccer final last night. They must have won it lots of times or something, as I did not get a sense of jubilation, maybe it was the Monday morning back to work blues :)

We ventured in with friends Marie and Mal, who knew their way around. We walked up Las Ramblas, which is a popular pedestrian only promenade with stalls, shops, street performers, cafes. We also went to the markets, fruit and veg, fish, meat, smallgoods, cheese etc etc..It all looked great, and fresh, and cheap. We then went off on our own and continued up Las Ramblas to the end, it is about a mile and a bit long, and came back down the pavement shops.

Bought a new USB stick, 16GB this time, so that should do me for photo back up storage until we get home now. So with the photos saved on the iPad, Netbook and the USB sticks, I am comfortable we are not going to lose them now :) We were going to do the HOHO bus, but to be honest we have had an overflowing dose of buildings and landmarks, and Donna has been hanging out for a swim at a beach. So about another 2 mile walk along a wonderful harbour promenade, we found our beach, Barceloneta.

The water was actually too cold for a swim, and the beach was hot, hot, hot, with topless bathing standard fare here. We then walked up the road a bit to the the Torre Sant Sebastia, which is a 78 metre tall lattice tower. This is the terminal of the Port Vell Aerial Tramway which runs over Torre Jaume to Montjuic. We had intended to go for a ride, but the queue was so long, so consensus was that it was Paella o'clock.

So lunch at a seaside restaurant, was good, but not as good as I had hoped. The paella was a bit overcooked and oily for my liking, maybe that is how they have it here. The beer was ice cold, and off the tap, lovely.

We were going to grab a cab for the 4 and a bit return trip mile back to the ship, but given we had time, and we had a rest break, we decided to walk back at a leisurely pace. It took us about one hour, 10 minutes, but it was just nice, great views across the harbour on the left, and the interesting architecture of the city on the right.

We were pretty well tuckered out by the time we got back, but it did feel good. A quiet and relaxing evening for us.

About 4pm we left our berth and retraced our courses out of Barcelona. Once clear of the traffic separation scheme, and after passing the Sea Buoy ( Boya De Recalda Sierra), Sun princess steered a south westerly heading towards the Strait of Gibraltar. At about 6pm we passed the oil production platform Casablanca 12 miles to starboard, as we hugged the Spanish coast. About 9.30pm we passed abeam of Islotes Columbretes 20 miles starboard. The largest island L'illa Grossa has a lighthouse, situated on a hill 67 metres above sea level. At the other end of the island is a cemetery with 11 graves where they buried the lighthouse keepers and their families who died during their stay on the island.