The thing about cruising and big cities is that it's rare of you feel you have really felt the heart of them, because if the limited amount of time you have there. Even with our extra day in Rome, we did not get to know it properly. The same goes for Barcelona. I kind of knew this would happen as we moved through the cruise, and therefore I/we chose to look at Barcelona through the eyes of Gaudi, by way of his tour with the cruise.
When we went to book we were told the tours were full, but that we could go on a waiting list. Then we got a letter to say the wait list had been cancelled. I visited the excursions desk on the off chance and was told that, because it was the last day of the cruise, it would be highly likely that there would be no-shows, and so we were to turn up just before departure to nab a spare seat. I had been so lucky though this whole cruise that I was quite confident we'd get one ... but we didn't. I was devastated when all 160 booked passengers did in fact, turn up for their tour.
Gutted, we opted for our fallback of the hop in hop off with Pat and Penny. Seeing them again when we'd said our goodbyes the night before was the bonus to missing the tour. I'd not done much research however, so felt a little out of sorts with what we were doing. But we headed of to firstly circumnavigate Gaudi's Sagrada Familia, which was amazing, even if we only got to see it from the outside. To see it completed in ten years will be my pull to come back.
We then continued on the bus, looking to make a meeting deadline with our other kiwi friends back at the boat at 2pm. The bus, however, had different ideas. It was ridiculously slow, and we had to just hope that our friends would go on without us. (Which fortunately they did).
Eventually we made our own way back to La Rambla, the well known walking boulevard of Barcelona. Also renowned for its pickpockets but fortunately we were perfectly safe. I loved the stalls, the people watching and the vibe, but we were a bit jaded so made a quick trip back for a freshen up on the boat, then, following a bit of messaging, arranged our rendezvous in the city again with Tom, Jan, Michelle and Wayne.
It took a wee while for Mum and me to find the meeting place, but on our travels we happened across an amazing indoor food market. I could have stayed there for ages, but just fired off some memory shots before finding somewhere to have our authentic Spanish fare for tea. The food wasn't quite as spectacular as we had hoped, but the sangria was just fine.
Our Kiwi get together was to see a Flamenco show recommended to Tom. It was just a half hour show at Tarantos, but it was incredible. High energy, intense emotion and real talent and authenticity. The main female performer was no spring chicken, but man was she fit, expressive and so clever. The flamenco guitarist also had me mesmerised. I had a front row seat and tried to get a bit fancy with a few of my shots but won't really know how successful I was till they're on the computer. The light was really tricky, combine that with constant movement and I think luck will come in to play. Maybe it will have gone my way this time.
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