Advertisement
Published: January 10th 2019
Edit Blog Post
Many of the places we are visiting we have been to before. In light of this, we are going to try to do something different at each place. This holiday looks to be like none other we have had before. It is going to be a cracker.
Not too earlier morning start this today, we were up and out the house by 8.00am and at the airport by 8.30am.
Check-in was not open when we got there, so we joined the queue. We did not realise that the empty line next to the queue was also in use for our flight. Could have been first in that queue if we had been more awake. Unusual for us. This is the first real holiday away for eighteen months.
By the time we got through check in, our gate was already called, and the Vueling plane for Barcelona arrived very shortly afterwards.
Vueling had sent us a new boarding pass with a boarding group number so we assumed that they had refined their processes to stop it being a free for all.
Wrong – No change of process, or checking of boarding group number. Just get on when
you want as normal.
We had an aisle seat and a middle seat and later on in the boarding a French lady came and sat in the window seat. She was a problem to the cabin crew throughout the flight. First they had to ask her to put all her bags on the floor under the seat in front. Then they had to ask her to fasten her seat belt. Then when we were sitting at the end of the runway they had to ask her to stop her mobile phone call and turn off her phone. Then we went through the same when we were ready to land with the seat belt and the bags. She made no eye contact with us during the fight and did not utter a word to anybody. I think she was upset that her partner was a few rows back. That is the penalty of not booking a seat and arriving at the airport late. Aka the passenger from hell.
Other than that, the flight was uneventful and we arrived in Barcelona a little early. The flight time was about 3.5 hours, smooth and no turbulence.
We are staying at
Aparthotel BCN Montjuic tonight so took a local taxi from the airport. We used the satnav on our new smart phone to make sure he was going the most direct route. We have not had this long so it is a new concept for us that we are picking up quite well.
The hotel is a little out of the tourist area, but we are not really here to be a tourist. It kept the cost down quite a bit.
Whilst checking Facebook this morning, we saw a post from one of the Americans also on the cruise that we will join tomorrow. He had found a Tim Hortons. This is a very well-known American refreshment shop. This had been one of our favourite places when we were in Dubai in 2016 & 2017. We decided that we would take a little trip there for some light supper.
Again, using the map on our Smart phone, we were able to find the nearest underground metro station then took a few stops. Cost for the metro was only €2.20 per ride. The metro was really quiet for the ride there. We are always very conscious of professional pickpockets
but unusually did not see any.
We found Tim Horton´s and had a super supper. The ride back on the metro was very busy, but we managed to squeeze onto the first train. We were just a bit panicky as we have heard so many bad stories about pickpockets in Barcelona. Again, we did not see any pickpockets.
Our hotel for the night is more like an apartment suite, and even has a little balcony to go with it. Everything we could need for our one night stay. It was quite cold and brisk but it is November to be fair.
We had a very comfortable night's sleep.
This hotel was very Spanish and we were able to talk them.
We were met outside by a local taxi they had booked the evening before and it was on site to pick us up fifteen minutes early. Our adventure was just about to begin.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.05s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 7; qc: 24; dbt: 0.0307s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb