Riviera Respite

Riviera Respite 2015

Barcelona  -  October 21-23, 2015

The intrepid couple awoke Thursday morning in Europe. Gym and Mrs. Gym have actually been here for two nights now, fighting jet lag and trying to get used to their new surroundings on the Mediterranean. Why leave Calgary at this time of year? The timing of this trip coincides with the closing of golf courses in Calgary. This time of year is also the time that the first hard frost freezes the ground in preparation for winter snows. Southern Alberta had made a good effort this year to try and extend the summer warmth right up to our departure date. Winter is coming though, it has never let us down. 

And where are we off to this time? We chose a one-week cruise from Barcelona to Rome and a few nights on either side of the boat ride to try to fully explore Catalonia and its capital of Barcelona and then Rome, the capital of Italy. We actually will only be able to scratch the surface of both of these great cities.

We left Calgary on October 20, 2015 and flew to Barcelona via Frankfurt, Germany. This basically took an entire day. The math includes about 10 hours in the air, five hours in airports and the time-zone thing. It all adds up to almost exactly 24 hours to get here. We used Air Canada to Frankfurt and then booked a Luftansa one-way ticket to Barcelona. These were routine flights and there were no mishaps. The one thing we did learn from the last time we came over here was to check-in online to Luftansa separately.  Last time we let Air Canada provide us with Luftansa boarding passes and we had to jump through a few hoops to make our connection.

I plan to post something every day or two starting with a bit about Barcelona right now and then hopefully I will be able to tell you a little bit about each stop along the way. The planned stops are in Majorca, Provence (Marseille), Monaco, Portofino, Cinque Terre, Florence and finally, Rome where we will spend 3 days.

Beautiful Barcelona

Wow! What a great city. I am very impressed with the clean, modern and very functional infrastructure here in Barcelona. If the Catalonian provence is successful in separating from the rest of Spain, they will be leaving at the right time, as it appears that this city is up-to-date (more on these politics later). The transportation network is state of the art and the cultural venues are numerous.  Barcelona has made the most of their 1992 Olympic legacy and the 1929 World Exhibition legacy, both of which provided much of what you see on Montjuic, a hill that overlooks the harbor and the city. In the time we have been here, I have seen no trash on the streets, no low-end housing, no industrial blight and no traffic jams.

A typical tree-lined street in Barcelona

We were based in the Hilton, Barcelona on the La Avinguda Diagonal which is a main thoroughfare running the entire length of the city, at a diagonal. Like all streets it is lined with mature trees and in this particular case, there is a treed boulevard. There are wide sidewalks and bike lanes as well as service roads parallel to the main road where space is available.  The city is very compact, as it is jammed between the mountains and the sea. Everyone lives in condos or apartments that we would refer to as "heritage buildings". Many of these are no more than four or five stories high and would have elevators but for the most part people use the stairs. Here is an example: 

La Padrera (or Casa Mila)

 
Is this how they all look? Absolutely not! This excellent shot by Mrs. Gym is of Gaudi's La Pedrera (or Casa Mila). It is the last residential building he designed and it was completed in 1910. We walked to this building from our hotel (about 3.2 Km) and took a self-guided tour, with audio. It is really cool. The stone façade suggests the movement of waves, splashed by the wrought iron of the balconies. It has the first underground parkade built for automobiles, which at that time were a novelty. The tour route took us to the rooftop, then down to the building’s attic where a Gaudi mini-museum was installed. There was also an apartment decorated in the modernist style that was open for viewing. Here are some other photos of La Pedrera:

On the roof - the chimneys are each unique works of art

 

Looking across the interior courtyard

 

a scale model of the building in Gaudi's attic exhibition

 

Mrs. Gym in the Attic

 

in the "period apartment"

 

underground carpark

 

looking up inside the interior courtyard

 After La Pedrera we were able to jump on the city-run, Hop-on; Hop-off tour bus that was conveniently located right on the corner of the block. This would have given us a comprehensive tour of the whole city if we had had the time but we only had half a day so we chose the red line which would take us through the old city, up Mountjuic and then down to the port.

The Barcelona Cathedral, a gothic masterpiece

inside looking back from the front door

the alter and in the left background, choir practice is ready to begin

We had a fabulous day for sightseeing in an open double-decker bus. On the roof you could sit and enjoy the sights on a clear, calm day with temperatures in the low 20s. We took in all the sights but could only make one stop, so we got off in the Gothic Quarter to visit the Barcelona Cathedral. While there we had lunch at Victor's and Mrs. Gym had "the best caesar salad of her life."

on the Diagonal

We re-boarded the bus and continued to close the loop on the red line route to the point where we could walk back to the Hilton where we dined that night lamenting the sights we missed and would like to see on our next trip to Barcelona.

In the morning we would make our way to the cruiseship. We used the same company to pick us up at the airport that would take us to the port. Luck would have it, we got the owner, Roman, on the way to the port. Roman explained his take on Catalan separatism. Aside from being culturally and linguistically distinct from the rest of Spain, Catalonia is like Alberta, not like Quebec. It is the richest region of Spain and it makes equalization payments to the poorer regions. Interesting.

We boarded the M/s Riviera with no fuss. This ship is the newest Oceania vessel. We ate in the Polo Grill where Mrs. Gym had secured reservations. During dinner we made our way out into the Mediterranean, destination Majorca. The sea was as calm as the water in your bathtub.