World Cruise – Day 36 and 37 – Sea Day and Barcelona, Spain

After our 2 days of rain, we had really rough seas on Day 36. I noticed that there were white paper bags hanging from a hook near the elevators, wondering what they were for, and then I figured it out. Turns out that the ship even had to add more bags later on, if that gives you an idea.

Luckily, I had my wristbands and patches, so I was good to go. A nice day of napping, reading and eating, was pretty much what consisted of my day.

The next day (Day 37), we arrived in Barcelona, Spain with sunny weather. Leslie and I had both been to Barcelona before and loved it. We were excited to be back. We were one of the first people off the ship, and walked from the port down Las Ramblas to Catalunya Square where we had breakfast (a croissant and cappuccino). We stopped at the market and had some fresh juice as well.

I really wanted to do a Gothic Quarter tour, and Leslie had already done one on her previous trip, but she was game to repeat the experience. We had signed up in advance for a free Purple Umbrella Tour at 10am. They met in Catalunya Square, so we were ready to go. Here is a pic of our group…

I really enjoyed our tour guide and it was nice learning about the history and walking through this cool part of Barcelona.

After a 2 ½ hour tour, we had to make our way to La Sagrada Familia for our skip the line tour at 2:00pm. We took the Metro, which is a great, easy way to travel in Barcelona.

When we came up from the Metro Station, we found a great place to have some tapas with a view of the church.

The tour was amazing, and I couldn’t help but take so many pictures. Our ticket included climbing the tower, which had amazing views. I had a hard time narrowing them down, so you get to see a lot of them…

After the spectacular tour at La Sagrada, we got on the Hop-on Hop-off Bus to Park Guell, one of Gaudi’s other amazing masterpieces. We didn’t get tickets to go inside, because we would have had to get them in advance, but it was pretty cool just walking around the gardens and going up to the 3 crosses. The view from up there was worth the trek.

We walked back to the bus stop (getting gelato along the way), and took the tour bus back to Catalunya Square. It was nice seeing the surrounding areas of Barcelona.

Finally, our last desire was to have some sangria and paella – we thought it would be the perfect way to top off a great day. We got a tip from our tour guide at La Sagrada Familia to go to a place called La Fonda, so I got out my phone, and we mapped out how to get there. It worked out nicely that it was on our way back to the ship, down Las Ramblas.

Amazingly enough, we found it and the food was spectacular. It may have been my favorite part of the day. We shared a liter of sangria, had the most delicious spring salad with balsamic ice-cream dressing (yes, I said ice-cream), meat and seafood paella, and a dessert crepe to top it all off.

We may have been a little tipsy getting back on the boat, but it seems that there were many people (not just us) getting back on the boat in the same condition. Needless to say, everyone, including us, had a great time in Barcelona!

Next up…a Sea Day…Gibralter…