Day 11 & 12 - Highlights of France & Barcelona
Our last day of the tour brought sunshine and a chance to see as many of the highlights of the city as possible. We woke early again and met our local guide to go see Gaudi's infamous La Sagrada Familia church and do a panoramic city tour of Barcelona. When we arrived at the work in progress church we walked through a garden to get the full effect from a distance. I stood in awe. I have seen plenty of pictures of La Sagrada Familia, but to see it in person was incredible.
Maybe you won't agree, but the architecture reminds me of a sand-drip castle I made as a child at the beach. However, the detail in the architecture was far more intricate than I ever created. The church is still being worked on and architects are still following the original creators designs.
We continued touring the city and went to an overlook high above the city to see all of Barcelona and the cruise port. I know, as a travel agent, how many cruises begin and end in Barcelona but I had no idea that the port could hold 16 cruise ships at one time! And it happens! Our guide said occasionally there are 16 in port at the same time. Holy Moly! That's potentionally a minimum of 18,000 tourists in the city just from cruise ships!
We dropped of some people at La Placa de Catalonia and those of us who signed up for the optional excursion to Montserrat continued on with our local guide out of the city. I woke up from my nap to an unusual looking mountain and our guide describing the history of Montserrat. I'm not catholic so I don't quite understand the significance of the Black Madonna, but the church was simply gorgeous! The views of Spain and the Pyrnees Mountains were also breathtaking!
We made it back to the city with enough time to stroll some more on Las Ramblas and snack on chocolate churros and champagne sangria. We ended the day with a farewell group dinner at a local restaurant, Citrus.
It was nice to spend one last evening all together with our travel buddies. We were blessed with a great variety of people from all over the world. We bonded with some more than others and the large group naturally divided itself into smaller groups throughout the week. We spent most of our time with the Australian family with young boys, a couple from California, a newlywed couple from the Phillipines, and two shopaholic women from California. We all bonded through our love for travel and exploration.
The ride to the airport was bittersweet. We took pictures and there were hugs all around...even from our Australian little brothers. The couple from California was on our flight from Barcelona to Philadelphia and they sent us Baileys from first class occasionally throughout the flight to sip on while we watched movies. Our luck struck twice as Katie and I ended up with our own seats at the back of the plane. After a week on a motor coach we were extremely grateful to be able to stretch out for the duration of our flight.
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