Mediterranean Day Fourteen

Day Fourteen – Barcelona and the Traveling Traveling Hat

So they drop kicked us out of the ship today. We loved you for 11 days now get lost. It was such a shock for us – for the first time in almost two weeks we had to make our own decisions. It was painful. So we take our transfer to the hotel and they had just sent off the cruise people – I hate them for taking our place just FYI – and then we tried to check in and none of the rooms were ready.

So we decided to be adventurous and go and try the hop on hop off bus (I call it the HOHO bus) and see the sights of Barcelona. There are three zones – red, blue and green. We didn’t have to do the green one since when we went through the first time we saw most of the beach area of Barcelona. So we ran off and got on the blue bus. We saw Casa Borillo-Fundacia which is a house designed by Antoni Gaudi and is the shape of a dragon with a big tail on top. We saw La Pedrera Espai Gaudi which is the bone house. We have pictures of most of this so if you are confused we will show you.

We saw Sagrada Familia which is the most noted landmark in Barcelona. Then we saw Gracia, Park Guell, the really upscale areas of Northern Barcelona, the ancient monastery, then some rich guy’s house that has a gate with a dragon it which is operated with levers so that as the gate opens the dragon opens its mouth. The dragon is designed by Gaudi – of course. Then on to the Barcelona futbol stadium which holds 100,000 people. Then back to the Plaza de Catalunya which is the beginning of the most famous street in Barcelona Las Rambla.

So that route was finished and we ran over and got onto the red line. After we got on the red line I was hot so I asked Tom for my traveling hat with its new Florence scarf. Oops. Forgot it on the blue bus. I was sad. The traveling hat means a lot to me and Tom felt just awful. Well nothing to be done about it so we continued on the red line which took us to various Barcelona landmarks which included Plaza de Espana and Montjuic which is where they held the Olympics and the port where we saw the Magic still docked and the statue of Christoforo de Columbo and then on to the World Trade Center, the zoo, the aquarium – we didn’t go into any of these mind you – just drove by – so back to Plaza de Catalunya where we caught the blue bus and we had to come over to the hotel because a friend from the cruise ship had stored her luggage with ours so that she could do the buses with us – and then Tom and I ran back down to Plaza de Catalunya and went to the information bureau to see if the traveling hat had been turned in. No dice.

We went to the red bus information center – no hat. We went to the blue bus information center – no hat. So I started to cry. Poor Tom. So he waited until each blue bus came by and went on and searched for the hat. A bus comes by, no hat. Another bus comes by, no hat. Buses continue to come by – no hat. So I tell Tom I think all hope is lost and my traveling hat is gone forever. Well wouldn’t you know that Tom gets on the next bus and lo and behold he found the traveling hat!! But no scarf. So Tom tells the lady and she does that Gallic shrug that they all do but he insisted and so she let him go up on the top level and look and again miraculously the scarf was on top of a chair three benches in front of where he left the hat. It is truly a miracle because we do not know how the scarf did not blow away since the top of the bus is an open air area. I saw Tom coming down the stairs with the hat and scarf in his hands – more tears – lots of hugging – there, there – all better.

So we wandered off to the market place in Las Rambla which is world famous and rightly so – they have mountains of whatever it is you want – fruit, vegetables, meats, seafood, chocolates, candies, breads, wines, chickens and all in perfect shape – no bruises, no dents, no grubby leaves – perfect. So after that we came back to the hotel. When we checked in the lady asked us if we would like some help with our dinner resos and we told her we had resos at Cinq Sentits (Five Senses) and she was amazed and wanted to know how I knew about that restaurant. Apparently it has been voted the number one new restaurant in Barcelona. I do know it only seats 30 people so we were lucky to get a space. And I will blog about that experience later. As I understand it – it is a very upscale tapas restaurant. And we are having 8, count ‘em 8, courses. Should be magnificent. And in case you are wondering when we stand still we still feel like we’re on the ship and also some person in this lobby has a ring tone from Doctor Who so I keep thinking Janet is calling me on my non-existent cell phone. LOL