Beginning in Barcelona

My friends Karen and Pat and I boarded Viking Sea today for a two-week Mediterranean cruise starting in Barcelona.  But there’s a back-story here.  We were booked for a Viking River Cruise on the Volga, to depart in June of 2020.  But you know what happened to that.  Yes, COVID, so we postponed another year in 2021.  I’d said that I wanted to visit Russia sooner rather than later, as I feared that ‘Crazy Putin’ might make it impossible some day.  With the ‘Pandemic Pause’, that fear came true, and we cancelled even before the invasion of Ukraine.  And we took our credit and applied it to Viking Ocean.  So we’re now very happy to be sailing in calm, friendly waters.

We arrived in Barcelona two days early; it’s a favorite of mine, and Pat and Karen had never been.  We’ve had a great time riding ‘Hop-On, Hop-Off’; enjoying Sangria and tapas, and making fun friends at the hotel and in restaurants.  And, of course, we’ve been seeing all things Gaudi.  My favorites are at Parc Guell, where beautiful mosaics color everything from curving benches to the famous Gaudi lizard.  Just try to find him free for a selfie!