Barcelona, Spain – Pre-cruise

Thursday, November 20, 2025 – Sunday, November 23, 2025

Father George and his wife took a Transatlantic Cruise in the spring. Gregg followed them on Facebook and we were smitten with the idea.

Why a Transatlantic Cruise??

If you’ve known us a long time, you would be understandably very confused seeing us on so many cruises. Gregg was a “Never Gonna Cruise” guy until we had our “Alaska Problem.” Good friends convinced him that a cruise was the best way for us to see the 50th State on our “to visit” list. We had a great time but he still wasn’t “sold.”

Then we took a Scandanavian cruise because we had always wanted to see those countries and cruising ended up being the least expensive, least amount of details to figure out on our own, and (for me) the least amount of travel anxiety. Fellow guests on that cruise convinced us we needed to cruise New Zealand and the rest is history.

On our first cruise, we did ALL (and I mean ALL) the “shippy” stuff. Back stage tours, scavenger hunts, formal dressing and dining, attend the shows, get the free piece of jewelry, you name it. It was fun and we also realized many of those things were one-and-done for us. So our following cruises, we allowed ourselves to skip things we didn’t want to do. And what we really enjoy doing is to sit, read, and relax.

A transatlantic cruise seems to be a great fit for us to just … sit, read, and relax for seven sea days.

If you have been to our home, you know we have a world map with pins in all the countries we’ve visited. And that map is missing pins in Spain, Morocco, and Portugal. This cruise will remedy that lack.

Fly to Barcelona

We flew from Jacksonville to Atlanta to Barcelona on Thursday and arrived Friday morning. Again, I swear by taking No-Jet-Lag every 2 hours in flight to help my body adjust to the six hour time difference. It doesn’t help with lack of sleep (no stimulants) but thankfully I was able to get a fair amount of sleep on the plane, all things considered.

Friday in Barcelona

We took a taxi to our hotel and left our luggage until our room was ready. While figuring out how to spend our day we hung out in a sitting area on the first floor (Americans would call it the second floor.) Gregg checked the time and … wait, what?! … where was his smart watch?? Word on the street says Barcelona is a hot bed for pick-pockets. The airport wasn’t busy and we don’t remember being close enough to anyone to snag it. There is a possibility that the strap broke when he was trying to put a large backpack on his back. Either that or it was stolen. Hopefully this will make us more aware of our surroundings the rest of the trip.

A Hop-On-Hop-Off stop was near the hotel so we bought tickets and sat on a bus for four hours. I won’t lie, I did doze off a few times. It was SO COLD outside that we sat inside the bus. Unfortunately, it wasn’t much warmer and we didn’t get to see much down below. But we weren’t willing to risk getting sick on our first day of vacation by sitting outside up top. Note to self: if the weather isn’t good enough to sit outside on the top of a Hop-On-Hop-Off bus, just skip it.

Back at the hotel, we checked into our room then headed out on foot to find a “market” we had heard about. We did find a long walking strip with booths as well as outdoor restaurants. It was too cold for us to enjoy sitting outside to eat, even with space heaters. After exploring, we headed to a mall our taxi driver had pointed out and found the restaurant he had recommended for paella.

We had seen Father George at Thursday morning prayers and he raved about the paella in Barcelona. Between his suggestion and the taxi driver’s recommendation, we had a delicious dinner at The Chipiron! I ordered a chicken with articoke hearts paella with a delicious sangria (when in Spain…!) Gregg had a vegetable paella with a very nice Spanish beer – Clara San Miguel – which had a light, lime flavor. I rarely drink beer anymore but I would have been happy with a glass of that on tap.

To bed by 8pm and I was dead to the world.

Saturday Excursion to Montserrat

We had picked out and paid for what we thought was the “perfect” excursion a few months ago. Two days before we left on our trip, they canceled “due to unforseen circumstances.” Ugh.

At dinner Friday night, Gregg began looking for excursions to take on Saturday. Between the two of us, somehow we came up with an exactly similar excursion. We signed up and the only confirmation we had was that our credit card had been charged.

So we were up at 6:00 am, left by taxi at 7:00 am headed to the bus station. He let us off and somehow Gregg figured out where we were supposed to go and check in. With that settled, we had time to grab breakfast at a food truck. We had nice warm ham and cheese croissant. I ordered tea with milk. Gregg ordered a flat white coffee and got an espresso. OK, so sometimes the language gets jumbled in the translation.

By the way, most people speak at least a little English, so it hasn’t been difficult to get around.

We met Elena, our tour director at the designated bus. There were three different tours sharing one bus which, surprisingly, worked out smoothly. All three tours were from the same tour group, CastlExperience, they just had different experiences.

We took an hour drive out of Barcelona and into the hills up to Montserrat. It was breathtaking! Just click on the link for a quick-see. The rock formations it is built into are unique and majestic.

Montserrat has a very old religious (Christian) history. Near this current monastery was found the “Black Madonna” who was eventually moved to the current basilica. We could see her from a distance but didn’t pay extra to see her up close.

We left the basilica as a service was beginning. We were inside the courtyard when the church bells began to ring. It was beautiful!

Elena gave us three hours to do what we wanted in that area before meeting the bus for our next stop. After spending some time inside the church, Gregg and I walked a nice but uphill path to see a cross on a hill seen from the monastery. There were stops along the way with statues and information. I’m glad we went.

Returning to the monastery, we browsed some shops for chocolate and a coffee mug, then took Elena’s recommendation and ate a traditional Catalan dessert, mel i mató, purchased from a vendor on our way back to the bus. Yum!

The view back down the mountain was also spectacular! We sat on the same side of the bus so that we could see the view from a different perspective than when we went up. We would see the snow-capped Pyrenees Mountains which separate Spain from France. Spectacular!

Our next and final stop was at a “castle” surrounded by vineyards. Oller del Mas Winery. They fed us a delicious lunch of soup, chicken leg and thigh on mashed potatoes, and a Catalan dessert. We would have two glasses of wine with lunch, white or red.

We sat at a table of over twelve people. The couple to my left was from south east Atlanta area. AND, the wife, Maegan Penley, is a watercolor (and digital) children’s picture book artist! No way! What are the odds?

They had us move from the lunch area into the castle where we sat in a room of wine barrels and had wine tastings of three additional wines. I sat by Maegan and we talked a little more about art. Elena has had over two years of education in wines. She clearly loves the subject and is full of energy, making it a very fun day.

The bus got us back in Barcelona around 7:30pm. We had planned to try to go to the Saturday evening service at Sagrada Familia, a Basilica designed by Antoni Gaudi. The cornerstone was laid 140 years ago and it is still under construction! They hope to “top” the final towers next summer.

But I digress. The service was at 8pm, they say you need to be there at least an hour in advance to get in, it was dark, and we were both TIRED. So we opted to return to the hotel for much needed sleep.GOOD CALL!

Saturday was a perfect day (although the wind was biting and COLD) and we are so glad we were able to take this excursion!

Sunday in Barcelona

We “slept in” until 7, left the hotel before 8, took a taxi to Sagrada Familia in hopes of getting into the 9am service and, our hopes were dashed. It was already full. We walked around the whole basilica admiring it. Then we walked through the city back towards our hotel. Once we knew where we were, we stopped at a sidewalk cafe for breakfast. We each had what looked like an open faced cheese sandwich on a roll with fresh vegetables on it.

I had a cup of tea. Gregg had a flat white (which was actually a flat white this time!) I tasted his and it was delicious even without added sugar! I wished I had braved it. I don’t drink coffee often and am not a fan of strong coffee like (“burned beans”) Starbucks. I should have known, Europeans tend to have good coffee (in our opinion.)

We had to check out at noon but had an hour before our ship boarding time so we hung out in the hotel lounge area again.

There were many busses available to take you to the cruise ships. But they were 3 Euros per person and you had to drag your luggage on and off the bus. We opted for a taxi (we’ve never taken as many taxis as we did in Barcelona – easy and not too expensive.) He dropped us off right at the door and charged maybe 10 Euros. It was worth the extra.

The Norwegian Pearl had been in the harbour since the day before. We met a couple on our excursion who are also on this ship. They are seasoned cruisers and said that all the cabins will be ready when we board since the crew had a day to prepare. With that in mind, we carried on our luggage and went straight to our cabin.

We unpacked, got the lay of the land, ate lunch at an “included” restaurant (Reubin Sandwiches,) sat and read books, walked around more, ate a little dinner at the buffet, and just enjoyed relaxing.

Curious observation – LOTS of stores here are having “Black Friday” sales … already … They don’t celebrate Thanksgiving, do they? Unless they are thankful we left. Tee hee.