Barcelona with a side of Tapas

So day 3 and 4 of our 4 port extravaganza was an overnight in Barcelona! 

This was one we both were really looking forward to as we were meeting a friend we had yet to meet face to face!

The weather was lovely, and we headed off the boat early (ish) after a light breakfast. We again decided to walk from the boat to the harbour as we believed it wasn't that far from where the boat was docked. How wrong we were! It ended up being about 4km from the boat to the start of the harbour, and it was rather windy, with it being a bit expost on the harbour! We passed the Viking Sky cruise ship, as well as the MSC Grandiosa on our way out of the harbour. 

At this port we had been informed in the 'Bugal' that some areas of the deck and balconies would be unable to be used while we took on LNG (Liquid Natural Gas) which powers the ship, Iona is one of a few cruise ships who run on this fuel. You can see on the photo below a ship docked alongside doing the 'bunkering' (furthest ship in the image below is Iona) the MSC Grandiosa was also having the same.  
Once we got to where the shuttle bus would have dropped us off, we decided there and then it would be caught on the way back!

We walked up the Rambler de Catalunya and headed to where we were to meet our friend at the Playa de Catalunya, which was a lovely walk up before a lot of the street performers and stalls had appeared. 

We ended up walking round a few shops (of course) and finally waited for our friend to arrive.

We went for a coffee, and then took a walk around the center, with our friend showing us little places and things we probably wouldn't have seen on a guided tour!

We ended up getting some lovely tapas and had a couple of beers in a local place, with our Spanish friend ordering some local stuff and helping with what was what! (Interestingly our friend also suggested not walking where we were in the Gothic quarter in the evenings as it's not the nicest of places at night!)


After this we walked a little further on towards the harbour and parted way with our friend, definitely considering a few weekends in Barcelona in the future!

That evening we had our usual table at the Aqua restaurant.
S had her usual Dairy free meal but the starter we both had was vegan which was nice. 

The next day we wandered (took the shuttle bus) back into Barcelona for about 10am, intent on taking the hop on hop off bus tour! Frustratingly, when we got to the bus stop, there was a notice that said that the bus would run from 1pm on the 7th November, the day we wanted it! There was no indication on the website that this was the case, so we walked around the harbour and went to a nearby shopping center. 

We then headed back to the ship for a spot of lunch and some time reading on the promenade deck. 

Some food photos 

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