Just as the sun is rising today, Thursday, October 21, the Queen Victoria sails into the blue-green waters of Monaco and drops anchor just over one-half mile from shore. Last April the Eurodam (about the same size as the QV), was able to dock right at the pier at Port Hercule, but today two other ships have beat us to it and our passengers will have to tender in. But before I can get to the wonders of Monaco, I will go back to our time in Barcelona.
Monday, 18 October 2010
We land on time at the Barcelona airport, but spend more than a few minutes looking for our car driver who is not waiting at the appointed place. She does arrive about a half hour late, speaking no English (which is odd for Barcelona), looking a little haggard, and driving a taxi with a meter rather than a private car. But she doesn’t set the meter so everything is fine as we make the short drive into the center of the city and the Laietana Palace Hotel, where our room is ready for us even though it is still early morning.
Our room on the fifth floor overlooks the Roman Wall that surrounds Barcelona Cathedral. We are ideally located only one block from a Metro station and in the heart of the Gothic Barrio or Old City. The highlights of the morning are café con leche and fresh croissants at a café directly opposite the cathedral; the cathedral itself, known as the darkest major church in Europe; and a walking tour of the narrow streets of the medieval heart of the city, leading to a local market recently reconstructed with undulating tile roofs and interior wooden ships' ceilings.
After a long afternoon siesta we venture out again by metro to Plaça Catalunya, the heart of downtown Barcelona and site of the major Spanish department store, El Corte Ingles; then on to Las Ramblas, a series of continuous boulevards that is the central artery of Catelan life. There is nothing that cannot be found along these streets, from plush hotels and fine restaurants to the St. Josep food market to street performers and gelato stands. We have dinner at a Barcelona version of a restaurant like Ruby Tuesdays and then stop for gelato on the street. We are ready to head back to our hotel—but then . . .
The Unfortunate Adventure of Will’s Pocket
On our metro ride back to the hotel Will is the victim of very wily pickpockets who get his wallet out of his velcroed side pocket just as the train doors are closing and we are on the outside on the station. Inside the train are the criminals with his passport, credit cards, driver’s license, medical cards, etc. Fortunately they didn’t get any money and there was no violence.
We do keep our heads and take a taxi to the central police station, where a member of the Barcelona Tourist Board is available as translator and helps us through the whole process of cancelling credit cards and filing a police report. Without his help I am sure we would have both been in tears. He guided Will through a series of free phone calls to his credits card companies and filled out all the police forms for him. The whole process took a little over an hour.
Both numbed and exhausted we taxi back to the hotel to prepare for tomorrow’s early morning trip to the American Consulate to get a new passport. I will continue with the details of this adventure in the next blog entry, but everything did work out: Will got his new passport and we boarded the ship on schedule. We even had enough spare time to have lunch and to visit Gaudi’s Sagrada Familia and the Picasso Museum.
So as we sail on tonight, we will continue the adventures tomorrow.
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