Barcelona, Spain to Civitavecchia, Italy

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Saturday 20th, and Sunday 21st, April 2013 - Barcelona, Spain to Civitavecchia, Italy

We spent Saturday morning packing and then went around to our mates, Barry and Carolyn's place, to drop off the car. Another friend, Linda, then drove us to Flaça station. When we were around two thirds of the way there Linda's phone rang. It transpired that M had left her handbag with all the dosh, phone and credit cards in the foot-well of the passenger seat of our car. We had to turn around and go back to L'Escala. Subsequently we missed our intended train to Barcelona and had to settle for a slow train an hour and twenty minutes later. This turned out to be a blessing in disguise as the ride was very interesting with lots of different stops and many different types of passengers travelling to the smaller towns on the way to Barcelona. There were a lot of cyclists and families who had obviously been out for the day. Additionally the waiting time for the connection to the R2 metro line was only 4 minutes at Passeig de Grácia station and the bus to our hotel was already waiting outside El Prat de Llobregat town station when we arrived.

We checked in painlessly. The rooms were quite functional but obviously designed for the budget traveller. There were 2 sets of bunk beds, a desk and a clean but sparse en-suite bathroom. The hotel was out of the town a bit but had a restaurant. This is where our luck started to run out. The restaurant turned out to be a brightly lit canteen and the food was cold and not very appetizing. M will make a point of mentioning this on her Trip Advisor review!

The next morning we got up at 5.30 am, went down to reception, received our "picnic" breakfast bags and went outside to wait for the taxi to the airport. We arrived at the new Terminal 1 in Barcelona, checked in and cleared security. Our Vueling flight was on time and when we reached the arrivals hall at Rome our taxi driver for our trip to the ship was waiting. We were delivered about 45 minutes later to the luggage check-in tent for the Noordam which is to be our home for the next month. We arrived around 10 am but didn't board the ship until around noon.

Our cabin was well appointed but had no hot water and the toilet didn't flush. We were assured the hot water would return once we had left the port. A plumber arrived about an hour later to fix the vacuum for the loo. We lunched in the Lido Restaurant and spent the rest of the day familiarizing ourselves with the ship. The ship was late leaving so we had to go to dinner without a shower. Dinner was also in the Lido Restaurant; as it turned out we need to make a reservation to eat in the main restaurant. We took in the show in the theatre which was an introduction to all the entertainers on board. They each gave a short performance. There are dancers, singers, pianists, and much more. We then retired exhausted. It had been a long day.

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