Alas! The Trip Must End...

Happy Thursday to you all!  Today we will finish up the 2008 Mediterranean cruise and trip to Europe.  Our ship, Voyager of the Seas returned to Barcelona on Saturday morning.  We did the self disembarkation which means we were allowed to leave whenever we were ready once the ship had cleared customs.  This is a good way to go if you have manageable luggage.  You don't leave your luggage in the hallway overnight that final night.  You keep in in the room with you and you just take it all with you and leave the ship once you are allowed to.  The only time this is troublesome is if you have too much luggage or luggage that is too heavy and have to walk down stairs.  You see, on disembarkation day, sometimes you can wait forever for an elevator that isn't completely packed.  But since one piece of my luggage never even made it to Europe in the first place, we were in pretty good shape.

The stormy weather that the ship had spent all day Friday in came all the way to Barcelona with us.  So when we arrived in Barcelona on Saturday morning it was cold and rainy.  I'm a knitter.  Before leaving home I had finished a couple of pairs of wool socks just for this trip and on this day, my wool socks were put to the test. We left the ship and arrived at our hotel by 9 A.M.  I was surprised to discover that they already had a room ready for us at the hotel.  So we were able to take our luggage upstairs and settle in before heading out for our final day of sightseeing.  I wish I could tell you the name of the hotel we stayed at on this night.  It was well located and a nice modern hotel but I do not remember the name of it.  It wasn't as cozy as the one we had stayed in the previous week.  But for one night it served the purpose and it had a towel warmer in the bathroom which was going to come in handy after we came in from sight seeing and had to thaw out with hot showers followed by hot towels.

After settling into the hotel, we went straight to a spot where we knew we could buy HOHO tickets and got on the next bus that went by.  We had already sort of mapped out what we had missed the previous week that we needed to do before leaving and we knew that there was no time to spare.  Our fist order of business was breakfast.  So, we headed out for coffee and a breakfast sandwich.  These were no Egg McMuffin's people.  It was a good old fashioned baguette with prosciutto.  We had these for lunch and breakfast on a couple of occasions and I love them.  I also loved getting a design in my coffee.  A steaming hot Americano and a baguette for under 5 euros and I was in heaven.

After breakfast we headed to Parc de la Ciutadella which is where the 1888 world exposition was held.  The Arc de Triomf was built as the entrance to the world expo that year and still stands.  It wasn't easy to find for some reason, but we eventually found it.  Before finding it we went by the Palau de la Musica Catalana which is a concert hall and got tickets for a tour that would take place later in the day.  While there we both realized that it is possible to attend an event there and we tried to find out if there were tickets available for that night.  But they were sold out.  Apparently everything there sells out in advance.  It is probably my biggest regret of the entire trip that we were unable to attend a musical performance there.  If you plan to spend any time in Barcelona, do yourself a favor and order tickets well in advance so that you can enjoy a true musical experience.  Tickets can be purchased at the Palau de la Musica Catalana website.

As you can see in the photo to the right, while we were at the Arc de Triomf, the sky tried to clear for a few minutes.  But the blue skies didn't last long.  Within just a few minutes, it started raining again and continued to rain until much later in the day.  The photo below was taken standing in front of the Arc and looking away from it.  I just thought the boulevard was nice.

Parc de la Ciutadella is home to the zoo among other things.  We weren't sure what we might find there and knew that we still had several other stops to make so we decided not to go in and just took a few pictures from outside the park.  Below are a couple of photos of the zoology museum which I thought was a really terrific building from the outside.    It was also built for the world expo of 1888.  How could you not love a building with a weather vane on it like that one?

After leaving the Parc de la Ciutadella, we rushed back over to the Palau de la Musica for our tour.  They do not allow photos to be taken inside.  I think it is so that if you want to see the ceiling you are forced to pay the $12 euros for the tour.  But make no mistake, you are there to see the ceiling.  It is amazing!  The building itself is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.  In the ceiling is the most unbelievable stained glass skylight you can imagine.  Since were weren't allowed to take photos inside, I'm posting one that I found on line.  But you can't really appreciate exactly how amazing it is unless you see it in person.  Maybe that's why they don't allow you to take photos since the photos could never do it justice.

The acoustics in the building are supposed to be remarkable.  I wish that I could confirm that with personal experience.  But I only heard people talking while we were there and single notes being played on the pipe organ which was being tuned.  The concert hall itself seats 2,200 people. It contains an enormous pipe organ and the hall was intended for choral performances.  Some of the worlds greatest opera singers have performed there in addition to world renowned orchestras.  A number of popular artists have performed there over the years too including Duke Ellington and Norah Jones.

Inside the Palau de la Musica

The outside of the Palau de la Musica

Jenny wet and cold. :-

 After leaving the Palau de la Musica we spent the rest of the day tying up loose ends.  I needed another suitcase to carry everything back home in since one of mine didn't make the trip.  So, we got that.  Then we got on the HOHO and headed back over to Park Guell since there was a souvenir shop over there that we both knew we wanted to revisit.  Walking up to the park, we were able to get pictures of the parrots that are in the trees over around the park.  Actually, on the HOHO we were told that they are kind of everywhere.  But you see a LOT of them near Park Guell.  By the time the day was over we were both very cold.  My handknit wool socks had done their job and kept my feet warm and dry.  But Jenny wasn't so lucky with her pathetic store bought socks.

After going back to the hotel and trying to warm up for a few minutes we decided to go out and look for a place to have our final meal in Barcelona.  We walked around for as long as we could and found a little market but no place to eat.  We were also hoping to see a lot of Christmas lights but the ones below were about all we saw.  So we went back to the hotel for a drink in the bar and then dinner in the hotels restaurant.  

Following dinner we went upstairs and repacked all of our luggage getting everything situated for the long flight home early the next morning.  The final incident of the trip occurred the next morning as the bellhop was loading our luggage into a waiting cab around 5 A.M.  In Barcelona there are bike lanes on all the streets.  (See the bike lane in the bottom photo.)  Even when a cab stops to load or unload passengers they can't be in the bike lane and the bike lane has the right of way.  So the cab was sitting in the first lane of car traffic and the bell hop had his luggage cart on the sidewalk.  He was taking luggage off of his cart and tossing it to the cab driver who was putting it into the trunk and he didn't notice a cyclist approaching.  You can imagine what happened.  The cyclist trying to avoid the luggage hit his breaks hard and went over his handlebars.  A huge argument between the three men ensued after the cyclist got back up.  I was sure that he must be horribly injured and that we would miss our flight filling out statements.  But no, it was Europe, so they all yelled at each other for a few minutes then the cyclist got on his bike and rode away and we got in the cab and left.  

All in all, the trip to Europe was the best trip of my life to this point.  There are many more places I need to go.  The problem that you run into is trying to decide if you want to hit another country or even continent first or revisit some of the places in Europe first that you have already been to but didn't spend enough time in.  I am of the inclination to visit Asia before going back to Rome.  But we'll see.

I hope you have enjoyed this recap of the Europe trip from 2008 as much as I have enjoyed going through all of the photos again.  I am not sure yet what tomorrow's blog will be about but please stay tuned for more exciting Places You'll Go!