Sunday, May 29th

We are beginning to feel like we are adjusting to the time change.  We slept in until nearly 7 AM and enjoyed breakfast at our hotel.  They do a great job catering to the US and European clientele.  Cappuccino and orange juice plus pastry as well as typical hot food.

Today we had a tour set up with Barcelona Day Tours.  Martha and Carlos, our guide and driver were awesome. We were the first of 13 to be pickup up outside our hotel.  We then made our way to Montserrat.

Being Sunday, it is a popular day for locals to make a pilgrimage to the monastery and we needed to arrive before sitting in traffic for hours.  It was an incredible place, well worth the hour drive each way.

 

We then headed to Park Guell.  This was a planned community that Gaudi designed that never “sold.”  He tested many of his design ideas that later became part of La Sagrada Familia.

 

Saturday, May 28th Barcelona, Spain

We arrived on time this morning in Barcelona and were bused to an immigration center and passport control.  There was 4 stations open and several thousand standing in line.  As we were about half way through the line an official invited us to step out of line an dwalk up to a window for EU citizens and we were suddenly at the front of the line. Things moved quickly and Janice got another stamp in her passport.

We had arranged a shuttle to our Hotel – Hotel Continental Palacete through a local shuttle provider.  We were with 6 others in a VW van and after about a half hour wait we were off to the city.

We were the first to be dropped off by the shuttle at our hotel, the Hotel Continental Palacete.  It is a very “pink” hotel but quite beautiful with great customer service.  Though we were quite early for check in, they took our bags and invited us to enjoy lunch at their buffet (included).  At about 1:30 our room was ready and our bags already delivered.

We changed clothes from traveling and set off to see La Sagrada Familia – a church that has been under construction since 1880 and slated for completion in 2026 at the centennial of the death of the mastermind, Antoni Gaudi. It was about a 1.5 mile walk from our hotel and the walk felt great after the flight.   Here a few pictures from my phone – more from the camera will have to follow later.

 

For dinner we stopped at street cafe and had croquettes and seafood paella

Sunday we have a tour booked that will take us around Barcelona and to Montserrat

 

Friday, May 27th – Heading Out

Today we will board American Airlines and fly from Detroit to Philadelphia.  In Philadelphia we will board a Transatlantic flight that will take us non-stop to Barcelona, Spain.  We leave Detroit at 4:15 and arrive in Spain the next morning at 8:55 AM.  Hopefully we will get some sleep so we are ready to explore Barcelona after checking in to our Hotel.  We left home a little bit early because of the concerns about TSA lines.  We both have Global Entry which includes trusted traveler status allow us to use the pre-check lines.  Took less than 5 minutes to go through security.   We grabbed lunch at Ruby Tuesday and are waiting for our inbound aircraft which is due in 15 minutes.  Our only observations is that airport is really quite warm.

We arrived in Philadelphia on time but as one of the locals said, “They don’t work much on a regular day, much less a holiday weekend.”  It took nearly 30 minutes from landing to get to the gate (no ramp workers present) and then to get our mandatory gate checked bag.  We took a shuttle bus across the terminals and around the planes to reach A terminal where they began boarding our flight as we walked up.

It was a full flight and they were offering 800 pp to take a later flight through Portugal that would get you in 4 hours later.  We kept our seats.

 

Looking Ahead

On Friday, May 27th we head out on another overseas adventure including a Mediterranean cruise on Holland American Line’s MS Eurodam.  The last week before a cruise is always a little bit of hurry up and wait.  We typically have so many things to do at work and home before begin gone for 2 weeks that we remain very busy and time flies.  At the same time the excitement of packing and thinking ahead makes time seem to creep.

On overview of our trip is as follows:

May 27 – Fly from Detroit to Philadelphia to Barcelona.

May 28 – Arrive in Barcelona where we are staying for 2 days at the Hotel Continental Palacete

On May 30th we will board the Eurodam and begin our cruise.