Barcelona

Leave a comment Posted on by dapperdaveanddinkydi Food, Interesting Stuff, Travel

La Rambla overrun with tourists

I can see why the people of Barcelona are protesting about the number of tourists taking over their city. This morning about 8am we went to La Boqueria, the market thinking we’d have breakfast there. We noticed some locals obviously having their Saturday morning breakfast before they did their shopping but honestly we could hardly move for tourists. We gave up and went back out to the street to find a cafe.

I’m glad we came here in 2014 for a week and thoroughly enjoyed the city. Now I feel that we are just adding to the problem by being two more tourists. There is an interesting article in The Australian this weekend about the plight of places that can’t cope with the number of visitors; especially those that come for a day and don’t spend any money – as those of us on cruise ships are won’t to do. Five percent of the world’s jobs are in tourism though, so it’s a bit of a dilemma. Tourism creates jobs but tourists create problems. Venice is certainly a case in point.

Anyway, after breakfast we hopped on the Hop-on Hop-off bus and did a two hour tour of the city. We were surprised to see that the Marina is still in port. It’s sunny today but quite cool and we needed our coats. The Sagrada Familia is still not finished. Barcelona has five kilometres of lovely sandy beaches, all easily accessible by tram and bus. The people were out early today soaking up the sunshine.

Here’s a view of the city from up high at the Jardins del Doctor Pia:

I was on the wrong side of the bus to get a good photo of the people on the beaches. This is the best I could do:

And here is the Sagrada Familia: It’s much to elaborate for my tastes but I can appreciate the amount of work in it.

When we were in Lima, Peru in 2010 we were amazed at the enclosed wooden balconies which many buildings have. They can do this because the climate there is so dry and the timber doesn’t rot. The average annual rainfall is 16mm per year – that’s right 1.6cm.

Today we saw a balcony which reminded us of Lima. Barcelona’s average rainfall is 64cm.

Tonight we are on a quest to find a restaurant where the locals eat. Wish us luck!

Leave a comment Posted on by dapperdaveanddinkydi Cruising, Food, Travel

Our life on the Oceania Marina is over! So sad!

This morning we had to leave our beautiful Marina. We had a great cruise – loved every minute of it. I don’t think I’ve ever slept so well. The king size beds are the most comfortable beds I have ever slept on and I slept like a baby most nights. They have the most amazing pillows. You can actually buy the bed, mattress, pillows and bedding and have it delivered to your home anywhere in the world. I’d love to but there’d be no room for anything else in our bedroom so I have to give it a miss.

The food on Oceania is outstanding. I think their claim to have “The finest cuisine at sea” is justifiable. Red Ginger is still my favourite restaurant on board but all the food we had was delicious. David loved his breakfasts and for a man who has coffee and tomato on toast most mornings at home, he did very well.

Can you see his plate? Lamb chops, crispy bacon, eggs, tomato to be followed by two pieces of toast and marmalade and he’d already had a plate of berries and an orange juice! Incredible!

We enjoyed the evening entertainment and I think we went for twelve out of the fourteen nights. The entertainment crew put on six singing and dancing evenings and we thoroughly enjoyed them all. We had a British comedian on two nights and he was very funny. David laughed a lot. A very clever pianist entertained us,again for two nights. He could play anything. Last night we had the crew’s salute and the end of the show and we couldn’t believe how many chefs there were.

I was concerned about how long it would take for us to get off the ship, go through border patrol, get a taxi and get to our hotel. I needn’t have worried. It was a very efficient operation. (Not like it was in Copenhagen in 2016 where we were in the taxi queue for two hours. No exaggeration!) Our time to disembark was 9am and by 9:30 we were stowing our luggage at our hotel and heading off to La Boqueria, the famous Barcelona market. We are very familiar with it as it was where we bought our food to take back to our apartment when we were here in 2014.

It’s amazing eh? I forgot to take a photo of the fruit. There’s so much and it all looks so fresh. We will be returning to the market shortly to buy our food for dinner.

We have a lovely hotel room at Citadines Ramblas right on Las Ramblas, the Main Street of Barcelona. We have tea making facilities, a microwave and cutlery, crockery etc so we will be able to buy fresh food at the market and eat in if we wish.

The weather has turned against us today – it’s raining and only 15* but we are not complaining because every other day has been fine and sunny. We decided to visit El Cortes Ingles, the large department store to get out of the rain while we waited to check in. It sells everything you could possibly want. When we were here before, there was no plug in the apartment and we went to a few shops trying to find one. Eventually we went to this store and managed, through some mime, to find the right area of the shop and bought a plug. So we affectionately call El Cortes Ingres The Plug Shop. David was going to buy a plug again as a souvenir but instead he bought two shirts.

We found a pleasant cafe to have lunch – seafood paella and a glass of sangria. Very nice? And they had soy milk so I could have a very good cappuccino. Yes!

A. Great start to our short stay in Barcelona!