No time for breakfast today. We have to leave the ship at 8:45am. There are a few things in this cruise that are a little strange; like giving you 7 hours in Malaga (which was beautiful, but still) when 3 would probably have been more than enough. Today in Barcelona we only have 4 hours. This is a big city and although they have a good transportation system, it still takes some time to go from one place to the next. I have been there before so I know the places and things that we absolutely must see. We are docked not far away from the entrance and are in no time on “Las Ramblas”. The weather is beautiful and the city is waking up. We walk up the famous avenue to “Plaça Catalunya” and then go on “Passeig de Gràcia”. We first get to “Casa Batlló” and then to “Casa Milà” also known as “La Pedrera”, 2 of Gaudí’s visionary work.
Gaudí was born near Tarragona in 1852. Although little is known about his personality, his famous architecture lives on, intriguing, inspiring, touching countless people. However, he was not very well respected during his lifetime and many of his buildings in Barcelona are still disputed.
We then take the subway to get to “La Sagrada Familia”, the most famous architectural element of Barcelona. No time for a visit though; we have to keep moving. The weather had suddenly changed in the short metro ride. It is now overcast and the sun had disappeared. After a walk around the site of the "ever unfinished" cathedral, we get back on the subway. The next stop is “Park Güell”. After the metro we have to walk up a steep hill to get to the park (thank god for escalators). We enter from one of the side entrances and make our way to the main one seeing Gaudí’s major art work and architecture pieces. The park overlooks the city and the scenery from up there is breathtaking. We probably do the fastest visit of the park, ever. 15 minutes later we are leaving. Mom is afraid that we'll be late to get back on the boat. We take the subway again and get back to the boat around 1:30pm and head to the lunch buffet. We leave Barcelona at 2. They have a meeting an hour later to tell us about the disembarking formalities in Genoa (the end of the cruise for the Italians) and Marseille. After that we all go take a nap.
Tonight we make our way back to the formal dining room. It is another elegant affair, not as fancy as the "Captain's Dinner", but we had to dress up. Dennis is in a great mood and seems to have forgiven our table mates. Dinner again is about 15 courses long and ends up with a Baked Alaska for dessert.
We then decide to go to the disco while mom goes to bed. We dance for a couple of hours and leave the dance floor drenched, sweating like pigs.
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