We enjoyed a sleep in this morning.
After a late breakfast we headed out of the hotel on foot with a plan to visit the port area and the Maritime Museum. There is a Carrefour Supermarket only a few minutes from the hotel, so it was first stop to buy some sunscreen It is such a pleasant change from Dubai, clear skies, temperature in the high 20's and a light breeze as opposed to stinking hot over 40 C and low visibility due to so much dust in the air.
Finally on our way, the first hazard was to get past the patisserie, which is very close to the hotel.
The walk down La Rambla to the harbour is very pleasant. There are not a lot of people out on the street yet, and the light breeze makes conditions very comfortable.
La Rambla is not so busy at around 9.30am
By far the most imposing landmark at the port is the Barcelona Column, a statue of Christopher Columbus mounted on the top of a towering Corinthian Column.
The Port is surrounded by beautiful old buildings, very well preserved. here are just a few of them.
The Port of Barcelona Building
The Old Customs House
Of equal interest is the huge marina, yacht club and surrounding infrastructure, so having absorbed a bit of history we headed straight for the marina.
It was good to see so many yachts
The marina complex is huge with a large shopping centre and lots of restaurants, as well as the royal Barcelona Maritime Club. It took around 45 minutes to walk around the harbourside perimeter.
Looking toward the harbour entrance with a floating sculpture in the foreground
There were a few luxury motor boats (with their own helicopters, of course)
However, this was all a bit of a pleasant diversion, because what we really came down here to see was the Maritime Museum, only a short walk back to the main port square, past some interesting older boats.
Onwards to the Museum, the entry price of only 7 Euro each seemed very reasonable, and it included a tour of an old Schooner (moored at the marina) called Santa Eulalia, but first a visit to the museum.
It is very impressive and has either been renovated or is relatively new, excluding the great old building it is housed in, previously the Royal Shipbuilding Site. The highlight for me was the life size replica of the Royal Galley, a huge ship powered by oar and sail, the original built in 1568, and it played a key role in driving the Ottoman Empire out of Spain.
View of the bow of the replica
The stern of the life size replica
This model shows what she would be like with the sail up and all oars extended
There was a cutaway area in the hull where you could look below decks
There was so much to see here we overspent our planned time. There were great exhibits on the evolution of sailing boats through to the modern era, and an equally good history of power boats from the steam era onwards.
Another exhibit that particularly took my fancy was this one of an early outboard motor.
The camera worked overtime whilst we were there and there is lots more, but too much to put on a blog. We left the museum well after 12 noon, and were ready for a cup of coffee in the lovely cafe they have included in the museum complex.
Whilst we had been in the Museum, we were unaware of a thunderstorm that had been building, and as we we having our coffee the heavens opened up with thunder and lightning and some heavy rain. It seemed to pass quickly, so we then went to complete our museum tour by looking over the schooner Santa Eulalia.
Santa Eulalia
By the time we had completed our ships tour, the weather was starting to look a bit nasty, so we headed back in the direction of the hotel, but on a different route to La Rambla. Along the way the rain came down very heavily and we sought shelter under some restaurant umbrellas until it passed. Eventually the rain was light enough to move on, and we were getting pretty hungry by now.
Along the way we stumbled upon the San Antonio Market and decided to go in to get out of the weather and have a look around at the produce. The storm got worse and we found a nice restaurant near the exit from the food part of the market, so decided we would stop here for lunch. It turned out to be a good decision, both with respect to the weather and the food quality.
The mussels were nice
When the weather cleared we headed back to the hotel, where we enjoyed a nice cool beer purchased from the Carrefour Supermarket yesterday.
Tonight is the official start of the Tauck Tour. We had reception cocktails with introductions of the tour participants, overall we have a group of 40. Of this 10 are an extended family from the Philippines on the annual family holiday. There are 2 other Aussies and the balance are from the USA. Overall it is a younger group than we were expecting.
We had a nice dinner (included in the tour), seated with the family from the Philippines who are all very nice and the patriarch is a very interesting man.
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