One last day

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Our last day in Barcelona, and we began it as we did all the others – find the newspaper and get some coffee. There was truly nothing on the agenda today so we walked out of the old city, taking different streets just for the fun of it, and figuring we’d take the return trip back up through the southernmost reaches of the La Ribera district where we’d not yet set foot.
In doing so we found ourselves once again on the waterfront, this time in front of the sailing boat basin. Many, many sailboats, bobbing in the sunshine which today was completely unhindered by clouds. It was still cool and there was a stiff breeze off the water but in actually felt like spring for the first on this trip. The tourists down here were dressed far more appropriately for Miami than the 55 degrees that it was, and I wondered if perhaps they were off the two cruise ships that were docked nearby. We wandered up to get photos of the Columbus statue and the Port Authority buildings and got roped into talking to a guy selling tickets for a harbor cruise that was leaving at that very minute. Not being the most spontaneous person in the world, I thought about it and shelled out 15€ for the 40-minute cruise and we got on board. The boat was late in departing because the salesmen were not convincing enough of the strollers that they really wanted to see the harbor, but eventually we reached some sort of business quorum because they threw off the lines and off we went.
It was a nice perspective compared to the dockside view we’d had the other day. You could see the two giant cruise ships – the Crystal Symphony (922 passengers) and the Norwegian Epic (4100 passengers) up close and gleaming in the sun. We also had close in views of a few more superyachts including one belonging to yet another Mexican billionaire, along with a whole host of others that were in for refurbishing, with shrink wrap tents covering their superstructure. There was a nice view of a Spanish navy missile frigate and the 18th century fortress high up on Montjuïc, overlooking La Rambla. The boat cruised out beyond the breakwater affording us a nice view of the Barcelona coast before making a u-turn and heading back. The first 20 minutes were over. We glided back into port and were deposited on the dock.

From there we went back to our original plan of seeing the last of La Ribera, stopping only to get a couple of slices of quiche to have for lunch back at our apartment. Time now to pack our bags, plan one last meal and get ready for the 3rd part of our trip – lovely Sevilla. 

 (click photos to enlarge)














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Unknown said…
Awesome!
3:18 PM
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