Well it is finally here, the final full day of our cruise. We really have not been looking forward to this. But first things first, we had a full day and night booked in Barcelona.

And what a damn hot day it was, 28 degrees, clear blue skies, stunning views from the ship.

A quick breakfast to prepare ourselves for the day.

I am not sure if I mentioned this previously, but it worth mentioning again. The lovely staff in the restaurants offer to help the old and infirm carry food and drinks back to their tables. I thought this was very lovely and thoughtful, Jason rightly pointed out it is probably to avoid accident too.

Then they started asking me, often, and this was before my wee Etna experience. WTF!

Feeling a little taken aback. Eventually I said ok, about the 4^th time I was asked. They are just doing their jobs right.

Feeling old.

We had an excursion booked and it sounded great, iconic landmarks of Barcelona, you could be there for weeks and not see them all.

I had a box of stuff I wanted to send from the post office, as we were leaving the ship we were stopped. The chap did not know if we were allowed to take stuff off the ship. So we were delayed by about 20 minutes. Eventually I took the box back to our room and said we would sort it out later.

Apparently 30 seconds after I left to do that we were told it was no problem. Typical – box still not sent!

BUT, this mean we missed our bus, BUT the lovely young man, Bruno Mars (seriously, really, that is his name) had booked us on the next bus, we chatted to him for a wee bit, he had been to NZ and wanted to go back, and finally we made it onto a bus.

The first couple of hours on the bus, off the bus, following the tour sign, listening to the old folk arguing, we opted to bail.

And we went exploring. Instead we walked around 14km seeing all the things we wanted to see, eating what we wanted, it was awesome.

There were a couple of things on my must do list and they mainly revolved around Gaudi. Last time I was here seeing his work was a highlight for me.

Jason thought they were hideous. Absolutely awful. “Was he on heroin” he asked. Never the less the good man humoured me and we went and walked about.

We hiked to the top of the hill where the Gaudi park has been built. It was manic and busy and loads of people. They have put escalators in the middle of the street to cater for the tourists so they don’t have to walk up so many steps, really, yes really. Perhaps some of them could do with walking up the steps, just a thought.

We found a map and started wandering around the park only to find out you now have to pay to see the Gaudi monuments. And, they were booked out until 830 that night. Not happy. Oh well, there were other things from Gaudi we could look at and we did.

As we were wandering the park we discovered some classical musicians playing modern music in one of the monuments. Like a cave, but not, they were awesome. Very clever guys with quite an audience. So we stayed and listed for a bit, put some money in the case, and then continued our walking.

This time we headed down to the Parc Cataluyna. On the way the streets were quiet and on the outer roads they were adhering to siesta time. So shops were closed between 1230 and 400pm. Whilst the shop keepers had a wee nap. This meant walking around was very pleasant.

Then we got back to the main area, ha, ha.

The Parc, in the middle of several busy roads is very pretty, and busy, and hot. The fountains were an interesting shade of snot green. Hmmmm. But the statues were cool.

Into Barcelona’s biggest mall. El Corte Inglis! It was freaking massive. Luckily I knew what I wanted so we did not wander aimlessly.

However, all malls need to learn something. If they had a drop off point for men that contained entertainment and served coffee or beer, they would make a lot more sales. Just saying.

Up to level 3, shoes! I found a stunning pair, and them back outside to the heat.

You cannot go to Barcelona without walking down La Rambla! So we did. The river of people was very all consuming, there was no escaping them.

A very polite young man offered to sell Jason some cannabis, maybe to help him with the shoe shopping, we didn’t stop to enquire though.

By this time we had been walking around for nearly 8 hours and it was time to head back to the ship to start packing and have a swim. We have to start packing and that sucks.

Not happy L

Anyway, Barcelona was lovely, very busy and we didn’t get to see everything. Like most places we have visited we would like to go back to Barcelona, the cruise has been a good taster if you think of it as the tapas of travel.

All bags were packed, the cruise company pick them up from your room at 1000pm, and we went to Red Ginger for our last amazing taste experience.

We were not let down.

Farewell Oceania Cruises Riviera

Like nearly everything on the ship the last day went like clockwork.

We had a very nice breakfast out on the deck overlooking Barcelona. Everyone on the boat was a lot more subdued and quiet compared to when we all got on the boat nearly two weeks prior.

Our bags were down in the terminal waiting for us and all buses were organised to take us to the airport.

As a last jab, some of the people on our bus were late, had trouble getting on, seemed to have lost their bags etc. But eventually we were on our way only 10 minutes later than scheduled ha, ha.

The trip to the airport was very quick, Sunday morning so not a lot of traffic.

We were flying with Vueling, who I had never heard of, so was a bit nervous. But the check in went amazingly well. Very fast, friendly, and efficient! YES!

We had a wander through duty free and I bought a watch to replace the one I broke when I fell. 100 euros so not extravagant but I like it. They could not resize it at the airport, this is an important factor for later, so don’t forget it.

They gave us another 20% off so I felt the need to get an 11 euro bottle of vodka, Smirnoff – platic bottle, very practical really. And a nice bottle of perfume which I had been umming and ahhing about, but with 20% off I could hardly say no!

Then we were delayed, delayed by nearly 2 hours, didn’t they know they were eating into our time in Paris. On the upside it gave me lots of time to catch up on writing this blog 🙂

Then onto Paris.

The flight was great, very quick, they were trying to make up time.

PARIS. PARIS. PARIS.