Cruisin' the Med: Barcelona

We had a PERFECT day in Barcelona, Spain! We were so psyched for this stop, because we had already visited Madrid, Toledo, and Segovia in the past -- and knew we wanted more of Spain! We all agree that we would really enjoy living in this country. Barcelona didn't disappoint!

View of the harbor from our docked ship

Closer view of the harbor

Statue of Christopher Columbus (all decked out in a jersey for the football championships!)

The main pedestrian boulevard, the Ramblas.

The busy Ramblas

Me and my best girl

Having experienced Spain before, we knew churros and chocolate were a MUST!

Beautiful architecture along the Ramblas

Entrance to the huge marketplace, La Boquería

Fresh cut fruit and fruit smoothies, ready to go!

Tons of colorful produce

We could have spent days trying out the food in there!

One of Barcelona's most famous landmarks is the unfinished construction work of the Sagrada Familia church. The mastermind designer, Antonin Gaudí worked on it from 1883 to his death in 1926. It has been constructed off and on since then, and is expected to be finished in another 25 years! We just looked at the exterior -- the line to get in was all the way around the block! I think it's kind of ugly, but it is also very interesting and unique.  The highest tower will reach to 550 feet!

La Sagrada Familia (Holy Family Church)

Another view

A model of how it will look when complete

Bonus!  International city!  We found Mexican food!
We like Spanish food too, but we felt deprived of Mexican food in Italy!

Yummy nachos!

Of course, Bryan and I had OURS with SANGRIA!

Andrew liked this griffon-covered building

The Cathedral of Barcelona

Barcelona's Arc de Triomf, built for the 1888 World's Fair

Andrew appropriately wore his ESPAÑA t-shirt!
Bryan's ability to speak Spanish for us everywhere we went was impressive!

Gorgeous palm trees!  The Passeig de Lluis Companys

Our ship in the harbor

We spent as much time as we could before having to head back to the ship. We will absolutely have to return to Barcelona!  And that's it for our Mediterranean cruise!  We were supposed to have a stop the day after this in Marseilles, France, but we couldn't dock due to waves and wind.  So, we spent the whole day relaxing and enjoying our last hours on the ship!  What a great week -- but time for real life! The day after returning home from the cruise started our MOVING week!  The packers came in full force Monday morning!

Cruisin' the Med: Tunisia

Our third stop was to the city of Tunis in the country of Tunisia on the continent of AFRICA!  This was by far the most exotic place we had been to yet!  It was a beautiful day and as we approached the pier we heard music.  They were greeting us with camels and a band!  What a welcome!

We were a tad nervous about just wandering around by ourselves (boy do we stick out like a sore thumb) so we took one of the ship's bus tours.  Andrew was thrilled (again) to see an important historic site -- the ancient ruins of Carthage are there.  After the fall of Carthage, the place was built over with Roman baths.  The Carthaginean empire peaked about 3000 years ago.

Cool Dad

Energetic Girl

Relaxed Mom

Happy Historian

Roman Aqueducts

A major shopping and business district

The famous Medina Marketplace

I got this cool shot from a window above

The shops were crazy!  I was hounded by salesmen if I paused at ANYTHING to look.  I stopped looking...

Artsy shot

Pretty door -- awesome kids!

Crazy amount of wire protecting some government building

From our bus ride, we could see these kind of slums.  And there was trash everywhere.

It looked like this everywhere.  No home looked finished or closed in.

Once we got back to the ship, we simply HAD to let the kids ride a camel!  Of course, there was a "small fee" but it was worth the 5 euros!

Everyone on!

Whoa! Bottoms up!

Posing pretty

Taking a walk by the ship

This camel is a poser!  I think he does this a lot!

It turned out to be a great day, but I was relieved when we pulled away in the ship. What an experience though! One we will never forget! This was the kiddos 16th country visit!

Cruisin' the Med: Messina

Our second stop was to the port of Messina on the island of Sicily, in Italy. I was not aware, but my husband and son were over the moon about going through the straits of Messina. Apparently it is famous for the Greek legends of Scylla and Charybdis -- the 2 immortal monsters who terrorized Odysseus and other sailors in the narrow channel.  They got up extra early to go out on deck and watch the ship go through the strait.  Other than this, Messina was a huge disappointment.  There was really nothing to see or do and it was FILTHY like Naples.  They, too, are having people vs. government trash issues and it showed!

Excited for another day and ready to dock!

We always enjoyed watching them dock the huge cruise ship.

A beautiful church

Another beautiful church way up a hill, but tarnished by graffiti.

This is how it looked everywhere around town.

Most of the buildings we saw looked like this.

This wall was actually kind of cool for a Sara shot!

View overlooking the bay

Overlooking the bay and our cruise ship!

Almost everything was covered in ugly graffiti. That's our ship in the background.

Extremely odd and very surprising -- we found a monument honoring Boy Scout founder Lord Baden Powell!

So, with not much to enjoy in Messina, it was back to the ship early, for cleaner, more relaxed fun! The kids spent the afternoon swimming and enjoying the ship's tube water slide. And us, well, you can see what we enjoyed!

Pretty cool to have a slide on the ship!

Wheee!

I know, he needs a sandwich!  He's growing upward so fast he can't keep up the weight gain!