Day 21 - Barcelona

We got up early as we needed to be off the ship by 8:30am. We had skip the line tickets for one of Barcelona's major attractions, Sagrada Familia.

Sagrada Familia is a massive church which has been under construction for over 100 years. It was designed by Guadi and is a very interesting structure. It can best be described as a gothic monstrosity. It has numerous towers and the outside is filled with sctatues of gargoyles and goblins. The inside is amazing as well, as the towers soar over 50 meters! We had paid for a tour to the top of one of the towers which was well worth it. We took an elevator to the top and were treated to outstanding views of Barcelona. We then took the seemingly never ending spiral staircase down to the floor of the church.

We left the church and jumped on a Hop on Hop off bus to see some sights of the city. Our niece Chantel (Jason and Elaine's daughter) had been engaged in a bar near the stadium of Barcelona soccer club so we set out to find the bar. We got off the Hoho bus and walked around the stadium to the bar. We grabbed a coffee, and Elaine showed the barman a picture of Chantel and Denham. Amazingly he remembered them and even showed us their Facebook post on his phone. Through broken english he said to say hello!

We got back on the Hoho bus and after a quick change got off at a museum on top of a large hill. It also had sweeping views across Barcelona, including Sagrada Familia rising out of the concrete jungle. After taking plenty of photos, we hopped back on the bus and headed to the shopping and restaurant hotspot, La Rambla.

Here we each had a paella for lunch which is a traditional Spanish rice dish. After lunch, we spent a couple of hours walking up La Rambla going in and out of stalls. We ventured into the food market and bought some chocolates as well as some meats to enjoy back on the ship.

We needed to be back on board at 5:30pm so we found a cab and headed back to the ship. We watched the sail away from our balconies before heading into the theatre for the 7pm show. Tonight was a stand up comedian from the UK and he was great. We all had a good laugh before heading up to the buffet for an esy meal. We were all tired so made it an early night.

Tomorrow is out last port, Marseille, France.