Our World Trip: Barcelona in the sun

Originally advertised as a tender port, it was pretty obvious we would come alongside here, but another gorgeous mooring right next to the LNG terminal in a row of 4 cruise ships! Barcelona has built a huge modern facility here for cruising, far better than when we were here last, even if our last arrival was seen from the flightdeck of a Qantas 747 from Heathrow in 1999!

The shuttle dropped us more or less at the Columbus monument so it made sense to stroll up La Rambla and watch the street artists over a cappuccino en route to explore the open market with its amazing and colourful displays of fresh fruit, fish (some still wriggling) and Iberian sausages – everything you could imagine in a market and we wondered why we don’t see this sort of thing more commonly in the UK.

Last time we were here we went over to the Gaudi Sagrada Familia cathedral, so this time we headed into the Gothic quarter and looked around the shops, alleyways and squares there, walking through the Santa Eulalia cathedral with its lovely cloisters and flock of cackling geese in their excellent stone goose-house

Another sunny lunch on a Spanish timescale took up rather more time than strictly necessary but last the shuttle was quite late so there was still time for a wander around the marina and its enormous leisure park – the curved bridge had simply no edge protection on a public walkway with a 6’ drop into the water! How do they get away with it?

All the other ships left before us, giving the Commodore plenty of room to reverse off the dockside and do a neat 180 to slip out of the harbour into the sunset. The days are longer now and daylight lasts through dinner, so it was lovely to see Spain silhouetted against the sun through the restaurant window.

Writing this on Saturday morning it was great to see Norwegian Jade headed into the Mediterranean for Barcelona tomorrow but just too far away for a photo – her bow decorations making her distinctive even from 3 or 4 miles off.

Through the Straits of Gibraltar later today and Northwards toward Southampton – packing the sunscreen and breaking out the jeans! There’s a Force 7 Easterly today bringing up the white horses and the Commodore seems worried about the forecast, but that should make Biscay a weather shore (but we are on a LINER!)