Heading Home

Sitting in the Barcelona airport waiting to find out our gate number. It's a little cool here this morning with 17 C . Airport not too busy at 8:00am but it is certain a huge place. Checking was pretty easy for us today. Now we have a 2 hour wait here.

We are finally in Montreal and through customs. It's a bit of a gong show here after a 7.5 hour flight from Paris. We have been on the go since 2:00am NL time so to say we are tired is a bit of an understatement. I am feeling worse so we booked a hotel in St. John's for the night.

See you tomorrow.

Cheers

Welcome home to Marystown. What a sad ending to a great couple of weeks. Ah well, it had to come sometime. lol

Update on Gladys. Now we both have it. Ah, well!!!

Day 13 September 22 - At Barcelona Day 2

Today we slept in for a while and then decided we would go visit Cathedral Barcelona which is 2 subway stops away from us followed by close to an hour walk - each way. Needless to say we are both tuckered out this evening. A little rest and dinner.

Here are a few photos of the magnificent cathedral which unfortunately I couldn't get a full front shot. The steeples and little chapels inside along with the confessionals. We lit some candles and said a prayer in one of the most beautiful chapels there but you weren't allowed to take a photograph. Gladys did take some photos of other saints.

Early night as we have a taxi to the airport at 7:15 am. Our flight from Barcelona goes to Paris were we arrive at 11:45 followed by a 90 minute stopover before we leave for Montreal. In Montreal we have a 4 hour layover before heading for St. John's with Air Canada flight AC2522. All is on time at the moment.

Adios!

What I could get of the front.

Front Entrance.

Main Altar.

Another view of the main altar.

Gladys in being the main spire from the top of the church.

Gladys in front of St. Rita's Shrine.

Statue of St. Rita

In the cathedral garden and cloister live 13 white geese of Saint Eulalie, one for each year of martyrdom she suffered (one for each year she lived). Think I may have only gotten 12 of them in the picture.

View of some of Barcelona from the top of the Cathedral.

Couldn't resist taking this little guy sitting outside a store.

Day 13 September 21 - At Barcelona Day 1

Good bye Celebrity Reflection

Hola Barcelona!

Well, the cruise is done and we are in Barcelona today. We took a taxi to our hotel to drop off our luggage and we are going to explore around here. A hop on hop off bus seems to be the route to go. We shall see.

We got off the boat early this morning and made it to the hotel before 9:30. Check in time is 3:00 but they would charge you for checking in early as well as taking your luggage. We opted for then latter and went for a hop on hop off bus ride around Barcelona. We wanted to go see the church La Sagrada Familia which has been under construction since 1882. It took us over 2 hours driving on one of these hot buses only to get there and there were no tickets to get into the church. It's sold out until Tuesday. There were crowds of people and not many places to get a photo. I had to take 2 to get it all in.

As well we took a little gondola ride which gave us a nice view of part of Barcelona. Even on the hop on hop off buses it was difficult to get a good photo. We arrived back at the hotel about 4:30 and we are tired now. I think I may be coming down with something too. I feel kind of sluggish today. We'll see.

Not sure what we will do tomorrow but hopefully it's not too hot. It's hard to get good directions here. I suppose it's the language barrier. But at the restaurant tonight they have 1 menu in English so that helped. We were frustrated a few times today. lol

We only have one plugin and with 4 things needed to be charged this may be my last post here until I get home. I hope you all enjoyed it and we look forward to seeing you all next week.

Cheers

Barry

Sunup in Barcelona!

My last  photos on the boat.

Gladys's last one.

Gladys in the gondola.

My selfie in the gondola.

The church photo 1.

The church photo 2.

Our hotel from across the street.

Dinner this evening at a little restaurant in the mall. Gladys had steak which was tough while I had cod with plantain & peppers which were over cooked. Ah well nobody can cook cod like a Newfoundlander.

My Cod!

Day 12 September 20 - At Sea

The cruise is winding down for sure! Today will be a day to pack up to leave the ship in the morning in Barcelona. Time flies when you are having fun certainly applies here.

This evening we are meeting up with Dave & Rosa, a couple from Phoenix, Arizona for dinner at 5:30. We are going a little earlier as we have to finish packing after dinner as our suitcases have to be outside the room by 10:00pm. We will keep whatever we need for tomorrow in a backpack and carry that with us. I guess with over 3,000 passengers to get off by 9:30 you have to be organized before.

Tomorrow the plan is to get a taxi to our hotel in Barcelona and spend the rest of the day check out some of the sights there.

Not your typical Mediterranean sunrise. Maybe it's sad that it's almost over too! lol

This is one of the entertainers - Harrison Treble, a piano playing singer - from earlier in the week who performed in the main foyer last night for an hour. He was fabulous - playing requests from people doing rock and roll on the piano.

Following the above performance we wen to the theatre to listen to Karl Loxley, a kind of classical trained singer who was on the Voice in Britain. He was great too and did a phenomenal job on Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah. A great evening of entertainment.

Stuck for photos today!

Gladys with a cloudy sky in the background!

Some last minute shopping!

Skipped this part. Kept money for shopping!

Art Auction on the go. People are buying this stuff - everyday!

Grand Foyer

Dinner with David & Rosa.

A last Mediterranean sunset!

We knew this day would come - but not this quick. :-)

Day 11 September 19 - Valetta Malta

We have almost docked in Valetta and have an early morning excursion. Hopefully it will be an interesting day albeit a hot one with temperatures 30+ C.

View from the ship. You can notice one cruise ship already in the channel. Apparently it docks on one side and our ship on the other side of the channel. We will have to take a little ferry across the 400 m inlet.

Valleta to the left of our ship.

View to the right of our ship.

Panoramic view of what I can see from our veranda including the Norwegian cruise liner docked on the other side of the channel

Here are a few pics taken from our veranda after coming back from our excursion today. Our excursion took us around the coastal area of the island and we did make several stops for photographs along the way including a fishing village where the smell reminded of driving through Mooring Cove when the fish plant was open. We have some great photos to share from that but I am having trouble with the computer, the flash drive or something today as it isn't cooperating. But I will work on it today and perhaps tomorrow with a sea day I can post some.

As you can see all the buildings are made from limestone and there is a huge quarry on the other side of the island that we drove by today. Also you can see some agriculture land where the fences to separate them are also of limestone used for that reason as well as protect the crops from wind.

There are lots of fortifications around the island for sure. The only fence other than limestone was around what was an airport in World War 2. The old barbed wire still goes around the top. The British owned the island so planes would stop there for refuelling and carrying out raids.

We finished off the day with a dinner and show. For dinner Gladys had an Arugula Salad followed by a Pork Duo while I had a Cobb Salad followed by Chorizo Linguine. Both were very good and we couldn't decide which dessert so Gladys had Biscuit Croustillant and I had No Sugar Added Blackberry-Anise Nougat Glace. We asked the waiter if we could have the 3rd one - Sticky Toffee Pudding - between us & he agreed. We will just have to do a little extra walking once we get home. lol

P. S. I will add some photos tomorrow. :-)

All three were excellent! We couldn't choose 1.

Me with a bit of Valleta in the background.

Entrance to the harbour of Valletta.

More of the Harbourside.

More of the fortifications around the harbour and town.

Street view.

Narrow streets - they drive on the opposite side of the road from us. Goes back to being owned by England years ago.

Some unusual fishing boats in the harbour at Marsaxlokk - one of Malta's fishing villages.

Another fishing boat. You wouldn't say people went fishing in those for sure. This is my favourite of all the boats I saw. See the name on the seat. lol

Fancy looking fishing boat.

A view of the harbour at Marsaxlokk.

Some more boats.

Gladys standing by one of the boats.

They do have bigger boats!!

And excursion boats too!

Baked sweets at the market near the pier in Marsaxlokk. Yummy looking!

Busy market area catering to tourists.

Market photo.

Catholic Church in Marsaxlokk. Malta is predominantly Catholic and every town has it's church which is the central part of the town. Some very magnificent buildings for sure. This is the closest we got to one but it wasn't open to view today.

Massive limestone quarry - photo don't do it justice as I took it from a moving bus.

Another view of the limestone quarry from the opposite side.

Malta is known for its fireworks. In this photo you can see a lot of small buildings scattered around. It is actually the largest fireworks company on Malta. They have many small buildings in case of an explosion. That way they would only lose one small part of the company. 

Greenest spot of the island. Notice a castle in the distance.

Fences in Malta - this is what separates tracts on land on the island.

Mdina - walled city in Malta with around 100 residents living there. But 1000's of tourists go through there each day. Photo taken from a bus gives best view we had.

Entrance to Mdina.

Ride around Mdina - we didn't have time to do it.

Street in Mdina.

Another narrow street.

Some vehicles here too.

Gladys posing with a guy who stands still.

Inside the walls of Mdina. Notice the axe on the left.

Taken as our cruise boat was leaving port. Norwegian cruise liner with 3900 passengers aboard docked across from our boat.

Another shot taken as we were leaving. Seems like a little bunch of trailers near the water. There is a restaurant there as music was playing.

Another view for the ship as were are pulling away. Amazing architecture from this well fortified town of Valetta.

Malta in our rear view mirror tonight!