Gaudi and the Ladies in Pink

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Geo: 41.3879, 2.16992

We sleep soundly as if on clouds. The beds at the Crowne Plaza are big and soft and this area of Barcelona seems to be quiet with no pervading noise of traffic or people. We breakfast at the hotel which was ok, I've had better, before heading out for some early morning sightseeing.

We catch the Metro to the Sagrada Familia, Antonio Gaudi's famous cathedral, that is still being built even though it was started over 100 years ago. Despite all the cranes and scaffolding it's still a sight to see and particularly resplendent in the early morning sunshine. From here we get back on the Metro and head down to Port Vell to enjoy a coffee whilst watching the sail boats in the harbour. The whole area is swarmed with street vendors selling fake Ray Bans, Gucci Handbags and Barca Shirts. Everyone knows they are fake but they seem to be doing brisk business nonetheless.

Mid morning we head back to the hotel to gather things before heading to the cruise port. We come up top at Poble Sec Metro Station to a sea of ladies in pink running a half marathon for breast cancer awareness. We have to wait for a gap in the pink horde to get across the street. The finish line is right outside our hotel and so it's pretty chaotic and noisy. Getting a taxi proves a lot more difficult than we anticipated too as a lot of the roads around the hotel have been closed off. So we wait patiently (some more so than others) with a group of other guests all clearly headed to the port and other ships.

Soon enough we arrive at Terminal B and hand over our luggage to the porters. Security, check-in and boarding takes no more than 10 minutes. Our later arrival means our cabin is ready as soon as we are onboard & so we head straight to deck 9 and stateroom 9638, a Junior Suite. We head up to the Windjammer for some lunch and no sooner are we there than we bump into Joyce and Jerry from Florida. It's so lovely to see them both after we last saw them at their home in February. Dennis and Gail also show up and it's been nearly 18 months since we last saw them on the Allure sailing out of Fort Lauderdale. This is why we enjoy cruising. We have met so many lovely people from around the world over the last 10 years.

We make dinner reservation at Portofinos for 10 of us on our last night (Peters Birthday) before heading back to the cabin. Our luggage turns up soon after and we quickly unpack everything in the hope that some of wrinkles will fall out. Sadly you can't bring travel irons onboard a cruise ship.

Muster drill is at 4.30pm and is surpassingly brief compared to some we have endured before. Ship must be full of seasoned cruisers I think. Back in our cabin we pop open the champagne for our sail away. We slip out of Barcelona passing by a very noisy P&O Ventura which looks like its full of middle class UKIP supporters all waving their Union Jacks like imbeciles as their cruise director leads them in a chant of V-E-N-T-U-R-A . Glad I am on the L-I-B-E-R-T-Y.

The Mediterranean is as still as a millpond as we leave port and turn north easterly to our first port of call, Marseille. We dress and head to the Diamond Lounge. Our Diamond Concierge is Oona from Romania. We have sailed with her before and she is very capable and efficient. Nothing is too much trouble. She also allows the free drinks to continue after the 8.30pm limit...but only briefly so. We get chatting to another couple. Eric and Tom who live in Philadelphia and Tampa respectively. Tom kindly says we can stay at his if we are ever cruising out of Tampa like we did back in Feb. extraordinarily kind for someone we just met as the offer was genuine.

We meet up with Joyce, Jerry et all for dinner. We usually do my time dining but as we are sailing with friends we decided to join them on the later sitting at 9pm. It take forever. First course doesn't show up till nearly 10pm and we don't get out till 11pm. Some of the others had problems with their food orders but apart from a delay in our wine arriving ours was good.

We part company with the others and park ourselves at Vintages the wine bar. We missed it on Adventure earlier this year as it's our favourite spot for people watching. Everywhere seems a little quiet even though the ship is full. Perhaps everyone has had a early night, especially if they had been travelling. We have a final drink in the Viking Crown looking down at Liberty which is prettily lit up as she makes steady progress northward.

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