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Published: June 13th 2008
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Las Ramblas
A wide shopping promenade. It was quite crowded. Barcelona, in the Catalonia region of Spain, is said not to be Spanish at all. It has a history all of its own. The Catalan language is similar to Spanish, but also has much in common with southern French dialects. It was the host of the 1992 Olympics. Pablo Picasso, Joan Miro, Salvador Dali, Pablo Casals and Antoni Gaudi have called Catalonia "home" and their influence is everywhere. The heart of the old city is called the Gothic Quarter, since most buildings here date from the 13th to 15th centuries.
We did not book a tour here and decided to do the city on our own. We disembarked the ship, caught a shuttle to the city center and headed to Las Ramblas, the wide shopping district promenade. There were sights to see everywhere and it was the first time we encountered human "statues" and street performers. I thought they were quite enjoyable and check out the video of one of them.
We found the central market and then decided to try to find the La Sagrada Familia. We checked a map and thought it looked too far to walk, so we headed to the metro. Not speaking the language
A street performer
This one is quite comical. He did a good job!! and being unfamiliar with subways, we were quite pleased to find they had someone at the entrance who could help us purchase the necessary tickets and direct us to the correct train to board. We were able to make the proper tansfer and arrived at La Sagrada Familia without too much stress.
La Sagrada Familia is a strking example of the work of Antoni Gaudi. This monsterous, unique church was begun in 1883 and never finished before Gaudi was killed in 1926. They are still working on it and it is still far from complete. When viewing and visiting it, you know why things that are over the top are called "gaudy." It most certainly is "over the top."
After visiting the "gaudy" church, we found a small restaurante so we could drink beer and eat tapas. The beer (Estrella Damm) was great but the tapas left much to be desired. They were nothing more than frozen pieces of various things (fish sticks, cheese sticks & maybe tuna) that you could get in the Costco freezer, cut into pieces and stacked on a piece of toast. We were rather disappointed especially when we heard about others experience with
tapas. Theirs sounded much, much better.
We found our way back to Las Ramblas without getting lost but that was not the case for Linda G and I. As we were heading back to the square to catch the shuttle to the ship, we got separated from the others. We thought they were behind us and they were actually ahead of us. The walkie-talkies we had with us turned out to be useless. Everyone needs to keep the batteries charged and turn them on. Linda and I decided to just get back to the ship on our own and we met up with Pam at the square. She had stayed behind to see if we showed up. Someone cared!!!!
We boarded the ship again, rested and then met for our traditional pre-dinner cocktails at Tom & Lindas. I great tradition and a wonderful way to catch up with everyone's day before heading to the dining room. We continued the "catching-up" over dinner.
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