Barcelona Gothic Touring
I am having a bit of a hard time trying to use this little key board as I am typing with a pencil point. Today Chris and Brigitte were off to try and buy a ticket to Valencia for the next leg of the trip so we headed out and agreed to meet at the catheradel at 1. By the time that they arrived at 1:30 Chris had had it. The problem is that they do not have a intergrated rail system so you can't do one stop shopping. When they finally got it figured out, they realized that the credit card was back at the appartment with not enought time to take the metro back and still meet us. They were 30 minutes late and we were ready to move on and see the gothic cathedral.In any case we did meet up and toured. The biggest problem was that my camera electronics went out and I had no camera available for most of the day. Now that we are at the appartment, it is working fine. We did stop at a sidewalk cafe for a beer and Brigitte struck up a convesation with a couple who eventually sent over 3 half liters of beer! Good for her.
Now we are headed for Gaudi street and will have some dinner . After that it will be back here. We need to head to the airport tomorrow around 7 am. I will try a final posting sometime after we get settled. We are scheduled to arrive late Saturaday night. It has been a wonderful "20" days. As always cheers!

Big Red Bus and Barcelona Touring

Barcelona issue a beautiful city.We have been here for for 2 days and have been running today seeing as much as we can. Spent yesterday in Montserrat and it is an extremely interesting place. Today was the busiest day. We rode the big red bus and saw the Gaudi park, and then raced to the dancing fountain display. Went got back here around midnight. More postings later but this hand held is very hard to type on.

Marseille Day

This will be the last posting from sea as we are scheduled to get off in Barcelona tomorrow and then stay for the 3 days of touring with Chris and Brigitte. We just returned from about 6 hours of "do it on you own" sightseeing! We actually encountered tours from the ship as we moved about. We needed to shuttle bus in to the city as we are docked about 4 miles from the main part. From there we took a city bus to Notre Dame, a massive church on the high point overlooking the city. It was built on the foundation of an old fort with another church on top of it. Quite impressive. The city views were very commanding as well. Rather than walk down we opted to use our return bus ticket to get back into town so we could head in another direction. We went up the main street for about 45 minute walk and reached the gardens, also located on a hill with a memorial on it. Of course by then we were getting hungry and thirsty so we stopped in a little sidewalk cafe and had beer, wine and a light snack; then headed back down to the old port. We did get off the beaten path a bit but it was just another interesting way to arrive downtown. There was another protest going on so it took quite to navigate the crowds and catch the bus back to the ship.
So the cruise is over except for the departing. Our opinion is that although the weather has been really great; no rain on the entire cruise, we still prefer the fall crossings with the port days up front and then the sea days to relax. This way we have had 4 port days in a row! Until next time...

Touring Rome On A Sunday

Pushing 6 pm local time and we returned from the full day in Rome. Considering how far it is to get to Rome, we needed to be on the bus by shortly after 8 am and for the sleepy heads that was accomplished with few problems.
We did Rome on Your Own which means that they take you there and bring you back and everything in between is on your own. The bus guide was quite good and funny and gave n excellent into to the places that we might want to visit. Having spent time in Rome on 2 previous visits we were off to some of the lesser places. They dropped us in St Peter's Square but the pope was conducting services today and St Peter's was closed until 1-2 pm which meant long lines and little time to make the departure. we decided to go to Castel S. Angelo which is the old fortress looking building at the beginning of the street to the church. It has had many uses in the past starting in Roman times but more recently used as apartments for various popes who built on top of the old Roman structure. It is where he went in times of political problems. At any rate it was quite interesting although a bit confusing with all the ages of the structures.
After that we headed down the Tiber - walking of course - into the Trastevere district which is just south of the Vatican. We were headed for the first Catholic church built in Rome called Santa Marie in Trastevere. A very impressive church. You think that you have seen it all and then the next church produces surprises. Lunch in a little cafe behind the church (gnocchi again) with wine and beer and then a walk back to the Vatican. The lineup was still long so we strolled the streets and looked in the shops.
Last night was Country Night and we did some line dancing and a few other things including an very good singer. Now the Italian opera is coming from the Atrium just outside this room. Judy is already back in the cabin taking a shower and will probably be asleep by the time I get there. All this before we crack open our new bottle of wine. Liverno walled towns and farm house lunch tomorrow. Cheers.