Today my sister and I unintentionally woke up at 4:30am!!! The rest of our group wasn't up yet and I didn't think anything on the ship was open at that time so we ordered room service. I ordered a salad and mac and cheese and worked on my blog for a while. When we met up with our group we had breakfast again!
We headed out to the buses for a driving tour around Barcelona. This place is beautiful and the architecture is amazing! We drove around Olympic Park, Christopher Colombus Square, Picasso Street, and Plaça Catalunya. While on the excursion we learned a few things. Barcelona is separated into 10 districts, we were in Katalonia, They have 2 national languages, Catalan and Spanish. Rome had ruled Barcelona for 429 years. Factories are no longer permitted in Barcelona but there are still chimneys around from when there were factories. Barcelona also hosted the 1992 Olympics.
After the bus tour we headed for Cathedral of the Holy Cross and Saint Eulalia in the Gothic Quarter. This is the oldest part of Barcelona and streets are small and closed off to most traffic. This is the most beautiful cathedral I've ever seen! The main basilica is surrounded by 9 chapels . Our guide showed us the collection of coat of arms around the choir stalls and it's supposed to be the most prestigious collection to date. Afterwards we headed out and explored the area on our own. I was surprised to see a lot of the same stores that we have back home. We even found a Disney Store and had to go in!
After lunch we took a shuttle back out and explored La Rambla right outside of the Gothic District. This place is full of culture and art. We also found La Boqueria, one of the most notable markets in Europe. The atmosphere was fun and it had a certain charm about it. There were numerous vendor stalls, each one different from the next. I thought it was cool how there bars and restaurant stalls next to butcher stalls and bakery stalls. This has been one of the best finds of the trip.
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