Barcelona and Home

I mentioned last time that my camera failed at the end of the Majorca stop.  I did manage to get it working again after I got home using tweezers and patience.  Nevertheless, I do not consider it reliable at this point.  I'm sure I'll get another before our next big trip.

I borrowed the images Michael took both with his Cannon camera and with his i-Phone to illustrate this blog entry.  Michael should have been in bed, nursing his cold the day we spent in Barcelona.  He really wanted to share the experience of seeing the Gaudi buildings with me and pushed himself to walk more than three miles. I suspect that this may have contributed to the bacterial infection he developed when we got home. Of course one never knows what germs one can pick up on an airplane.

I start with a few images from Majorca.  I wanted to share the picture of Michael, me and Bruce on the back of the Soller train.  We look as if we were having a great time, which we were.  There is also a shot from the Silver Wind showing a freighter carrying a couple of yachts.  A Danish man we were watching this spectacle with told us that this is how the rich move their boats from one far away location to another.  It is less expensive than hiring a crew to sail the boat and a lot safer.  Many of the yachts in the Palma de Mallorca harbor seemed to have been shrink wrapped for the winter.  The boat on the left appears to have been shrink wrapped also.  This is something I had never seen before.  Our Danish acquaintance said that the wrapping protects the vessel from the weather so the cost of painting and scraping in the spring is minimal.  What will they think of next?

The Silver Wind was scheduled to be at the port of Barcelona for two days.  We had the first day to sightsee and pack.  We scheduled a departure from the ship at 5:00 a.m. the next day to drive to the Barcelona airport and a 7:30 flight to Frankfort.  If all went well we would be home in Boulder by mid afternoon. Meanwhile we had about half a day to walk in Barcelona.

Antoni Gaudi was a Spanish Catalan architect of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and a pioneer of Catalan Modernism.  That means his buildings are weird.  His work is the basis for the English word gaudy.   Nonetheless, he was a genius in the use of ceramics, tile, concrete, wrought iron and stained glass to create some amazing buildings.

The silver Wind docked fairly close to the port entrance.  We had easy access to "The Ramblas", a long pedestrian street that runs north inland from the water and a statue of Columbus pointing inexplicably toward Africa.   We took a slow walk up the Ramblas, through a square with many fountains and statues and continued north on the Paseo de Gracia to the first Gaudi house, the Batllo house. The building has no corners.  A few blocks further north we came upon the Gaudi apartment building, the Pedrera House, It looks like a melting layer cake. Turning east, we walked most of another mile to the Sacgrada Familia church that is still unfinished after a hundred years.  There are construction cranes and activity now going on in an attempt to finish Gaudi's most famous structure more or less according to his plans. Michael took pictures both with his camera and i-Phone so I do have a record of this even though my camera wasn't working. Michael was exhausted after our three-mile ramble so we took a taxi from the church back to the port .

Michael rested while I packed.  We had an early final dinner aboard the  Silver Wind, said our goodbyes to everyone and retired early with the alarm set for 3:30 a.m.

We had a room service breakfast shortly after 4:00 a.m. and were on the pier by 4:45 for our very early departure to the airport.  I was surprised that the shore concierge was there to bid us goodbye in person.  As he helped load our bags into the taxi, I asked if we were the first to leave this morning.  He told us that another couple had left at 4:00 a.m. so we had the second earliest flight home. We were going from Barcelona to Frankfurt and from Frankfurt directly to Denver.

Barcelona was deserted and the highway to the Barcelona airport had only a few early morning commuters.  All went smoothly at the airport and we were airborne looking down on the Silver Wind shortly after 7:30 a.m.  Our flight to Frankfort went over the Alps.  The sky was crisp and clear until we reached Germany.  We had some wonderful views of the snow covered mountains and valleys.  Our flight from Frankfort to Denver was merely long and boring.  The two in-flight movies were terrible.  The view outside was mostly cloudy although I did get a glimpse of an ice-covered Hudson's Bay.

Michael and I have been home for a month now.  We had a most wonderful trip. I have greatly enjoyed writing about it.  I'm sorry it took so long for me to finish. 

Michael fully recovered from his illnesses.  We spent this past week at the Conference on World Affairs held at the University of Colorado at Boulder every year.  Attending lectures and panel discussions from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. most days makes me appreciate the retired life.  Still, I'm looking forward to next year's conference.

We have already made a deposit on another cruise for next January: 50 days from Los Angeles to Hong Kong the long way.  The itinerary includes various South Sea Islands, New Zealand, Australia, Bali, Borneo and Manila in the Philippines. Michael and I found that 39 days was not too long.  It helps that Michael passed the 500 days on Silver Sea mark and has qualified for 14 free days that we will apply to the cruise.  Thanks for following our adventures.