Barcelona - October 10

Today we arrived in Barcelona and found the port full of cruise ships. From our vantage point we could see 6 large ones. We had to tie up next to a dirt road because all the terminal space was full. We had arranged for a car and driver to pick us up and take us to Montserrat, a monastery in the mountains outside of Barcelona. When we went there last year we had noticed that there was a funicular to take you all the way to the top of the mountain and a cog railway to take you down the mountain. We didn’t have time to try those then so we decided to do it this year. Mark, our driver drove us on a winding road up to the monastery and dropped us off. We bought our tickets and lined up for the funicular. The ride up was awesome. The funicular goes up a couple of thousand feet almost vertically. It was a bright sunny day so we had a gorgeous view of the surrounding area. After going back down to the monastery level, we bought some local sheep’s milk cheese from a vendor. The cheese is sliced in wedges and placed in a jar with olive oil. We had bought some last year and thought it was delicious.

For our ride down the mountain we took the Cremallera (the cog railway). It winds down the side of the mountain affording views that you don’t get from a car. At the bottom we met our driver who took us back into Barcelona. Today was not a very tiring day like some of the others we’ve had, but still very interesting. Some of our shipmates went into downtown Barcelona and were unable to get around too well because there was some sort of demonstration blocking streets and traffic. They seem to have a lot of those here.

The Emerald Princess was the last ship to sail and as we made our way out of the channel, we could see the sea outside dotted with cruise ships on their way to their next destinations.

Tomorrow will be a day at sea as we sail down the coast of Spain and through the Strait of Gibraltar to the Atlantic.