Barcelona – Day Four

Writing that heading makes me feel I should be writing a lot more than I have done and yet, every day has been filled!

Day Four was a Sunday on which Barcelona was not only hosting the Americas’ Cup and a cycle race a political rally was also interfering with traffic flow. A catamaran cruise along the coast was included in our hop-on, hop-off tickets so we decided to walk down Las Ramblas to the wharf for the first sailing at 10.15. Very few others had surfaced so we had plenty of room on the top deck to move around and observe life on the sea around us.

It was a glorious morning with bright blue skies and calm sea. There were some cruise ships in and there was evidence of racing yachts.

What amused us though was the contrast between ancient and modern representations of men with Mr Chanel dwarfing Christopher Columbus in this quayside competition

The cruise was just for an hour but it was fascinating to see the skyline of the city from a different perspective and to be able to identify some of the sights we had seen from the bus the previous day. Definitely an activity to be recommended.

And there was activity on the water, too, both small and larger.

So intrigued was I by this little fella popping up from nowhere and seemingly gliding over the water miraculously that I totally missed these beauties sailing past – probably something to do with the Americas Cup, we think, but there was no easily accessible information for us to check. This was a day some of the female teams were racing.

They’re so graceful!!

So that pleasant hour was immediately followed by another drinking iced coffee at a very laid back cafe at the quayside end of Las Ramblas before setting off to find the bus again. That was quite a walk but it took us past some interesting parts of the waterfront where the Americas Cup ‘village’ was before boarding the second hop-on, hop-off to come along as the first one – just a few minutes before- had been too full even to allow us to stand.

A leisurely journey back to Pl. de Catalanya and we were ready for lunch and to find out some details about the concert I had seen advertised. I had already decided I would go but my companions wanted to be certain it was for them. Our lunch stop was very near the venue so we stopped to ask and were immediately advised by the very friendly ticket salesman that this was one of the best of its kind. Three of Spain’s best guitarists and a renowned flamenco (no, not flamingo!!!) dancer. A few hours later we were able to agree: he wasn’t wrong.

The terrace restaurant in the building is one I’ve had my eye on, so it was good to have an excuse to try it. We arranged to meet at 6.30 before it got busy and were able to enjoy a pleasant hour and half with good food before we made our way down to join the others for the concert.

Another really good day!