Spring Break in the Mediterranean-part 4

Okay...time for another installment of our fabulous spring break cruise.   Next stop...Barcelona!
I was so excited for this stop although we only had 5 hours in port here.  Let me say you could spend a week in Barcelona and not see everything, so 5 hours was really just like sticking our toe in the pool.  But a few hours in Barcelona is better than no hours anyday!

We figured the best way to see the most and get an overview of things was to take the hop on-hop off bus.  It had two interconnecting loops that took 2 1/2 hours each. We knew we couldn't do all of both loops and that we would be pressed for time, but we all "hopped on" for about 24 Euro each and off we went!

The picture on the left is the famous statue of Christopher Columbus right near the waterfront where we caught the bus.  He is pointing out to sea and behind him is the famous shopping and eating boulevard called Las Ramblas.  It is thronged by street vendors, tarot readers, musicians and mime artists.  It stretches nearly 2 kilometers.

This one by Gaudi had a roof that looked like dragon scales

The bus took us past many beautiful areas.  The buildings are so pretty.  One of my favorite areas was the Quadrat d'Or or the Golden Square.  It contains many of the city's best Modernista buildings and a couple designed by Gaudi.  

This is Gaudi's Casa Mila "La Pedera"

My number one destination in Barcelona was the Sagrada Familia.  I had heard so much about this cathedral that has been under construction for over a hundred years and is still being worked on today.  It is the greatest work of Catalan Architect Antoni Gaudi (1852-1926). He was a very modernistic architect and way ahead of his time.  Some people say he was just plain crazy.  I think he was amazing! 

  As my first view of Sagrada Familia came in to view, I was not disappointed!   It is impossible to describe and the pictures don't do it justice at all.  

There are two main facades to the cathedral, the Nativity Facade and the Passion Facade.  They are very different in both style and content.

This is the Passion Facade

This is the Nativity Facade

After seeing so many cathedrals that are centuries old and some that took centuries to build, it was cool to know we were seeing something that is now and will be, when completed one of those awesome masterpieces that last for all time.

We hopped back on the bus and after a bit more time passed, we realized that it was going to be really, really close for us to get back in time for us to catch our shuttle back to the ship.  We rode for about another hour and then got to a point near the top of Las Ramblas where we had to hop off the bus and run for the shuttle.  We have to have set a record for the fastest group of people to ever "ramble" down Las Ramblas!!   It was so painful to pass all these shops and not be able to stop, go in , or even slow down.   Mike had the GPS and he was ahead of us all and setting the pace.  He knew we were minutes from missing the shuttle, so he wouldn't slow down at all.  Oh well, we DID make the shuttle just in time, and found out some others from our group had to jump off the bus at a different point and take the metro back to Las Ramblas and then run for it as well.   Did I mention 5 hours in Barcelona is not enough!??

We would love to come back and see more of this city and Spain.  I hope we get the chance to  do it before we leave.

Our last port was Marseilles, France!  As we came in to port, we could see the Chateau D'If, which is the prison island that both the Count of Monte Cristo and Man in the Iron Mask reference.  Our friends, the Jasters took a tour boat out there and said it was the best thing they did the whole cruise.  We will put it on our list for next time!

We arrived early on a Saturday morning and after paying to shuttle in again from the ship, we were dropped off at the big U-shaped marina in the center of town.  We were thrilled to see we were in time to see the fishing boats arriving with their morning catch ready for the fish market.  

Big ugly fish next to beautiful fresh flowers....it made my day!

Missy did the research on Marseilles and read about a famous bakery that makes these little cookies...sounds yummy, so we set off to find the famous bakery.  We walked through some fun little streets and finally found it.  BUT...oh my goodness...the smell!   It wasn't like anything I have ever smelled before.  Some of the kids didn't even want to go in.  But Missy went in and bought a bag of these dry, stiff, bread stick looking things that were the famous cookies.  They told her they have a shelf life of one year!  We all tried them and they didn't taste any better than they smelled!  They were interesting and have become one of the jokes of the trip.

We spent the rest of the day exploring and shopping. Mike went on a hop on, hop off bus tour by himself.  He didn't want to spend the day shopping.  

Lunch at a french sidewalk cafe..yummo!

Travis and Chris try out the open port a potties that were set up for a marathon.

Missy and I had a great time shopping.  We bought tablecloths out of provencal fabric, lavendar soaps, postcards, shopping bags and some macaroons that were so good!

Here the kids are waiting for the group to meet up to take the shuttle back to the ship.  We had a great last day.  That night we got back to the ship and found they had delayed our departure from Marseilles because of the volcano and it's disruption of air travel.  Costa Cruise takes on and drops off passengers at different ports along the cruise and so people trying to get on in Marseilles were delayed and the cruiseline decided to give them a few extra hours to try to make it.

The next day we had a smooth time disembarking and crammed back in to the little BMW and headed for home.  We did take a longer route home through Austria because Mike was worried about there being a lot more road traffic with the flights cancelled and the tunnel in Switzerland is notorious for hours of back up.  Anyway...we made it home by 10 PM and that brought to a close our wonderful spring break vacation. We feel very blessed to have been able to see and experience so much and to do it with such great families!  

 I am going back and adding a few more pics to parts 1-3.  And I may even add a few more to

 this one.  There were just so many and this was just the tip of the iceberg.

Until next Sunday!

love and miss you all,

-corri