Leaving today for Europe

Enjoy your trip, CI!

I´m now in Barcelona at a internet cafe on Ramblas Avenue, the main pedestrian street in Barcelona. We visited two wineries today on an optional tour, the Freixenet and Torres wineries. The first one has over 180 million bottles of wine stored in their celler. Amazing! Dinner time starts at 830PM here, and it´s only a little after 7, so I´m waiting for dinner time. Barcelona is a great city for walking in the evening. This area has a lot of college students. Will write a summary when I get back.

Francis, Thank you!

Well, c.i. - bon voyage and may the wind fill your ship's sails. :wink:

C.i., as usual, your trip sounds so tempting. I have heard many times about Barcelona being one of the best cities in Europe. I'll be anxious to hear your descriptions.

A cruise to Athens? I'm sure I'd think that I'd died and gone to heaven. We can always count on you to post wonderful photos and your travelogue is professional. Have you ever thought of putting it all together and publishing what would amount to a tour of the world?

*looking around outside*

hmph

i'm jealous. but have a grand ol' time anyway!

Nice to see Onyx again, and CI, Bon Voyage....

Hi all, but especially to Onyx cause I haven't seen hear for awhile. I'm at the port for Rome right now, and with some time before our ship sails tonite, thought I'd check out my emails and a2k.

I just started to jot down some notes last nite, but our days have been filled with so much activity, I'm always exhausted by the end of the day.

Adios for now. t.

Port for Rome, ooooh!

An antique 'photo' of Civitavecchia, the port of Rome:




and this is today's view




Have a nice stay, c.i. and good journey back!

Got home early noon today. It was a long day, so I'll just say "hi" and try to jot down some notes tomorrow.

Thanks for all the well wishes for a good journey/voyage. It was more than grand.

Good to see you back save, c.i.!

We are all eager to hear .... and especially see more!

Welcome home and waiting to see some great photo's.

c.i., I hope you had a wonderful trip. And welcome home!

Finally wrote one page on Barcelona.

FROM BARCELONA TO ATHENS

Here's the journey in a nutshell; it lasted 15-days that included a 10-day cruise on the Insignia, a moderate sized ship that can carry up to 684 guests with 400 staff. What makes the Insignia (Oceania Cruise Line) very special are the staff from over 50 countries and the great food. But of coarse it's sacrilege to talk about good food without talking about wine. This was the First Annual Jewel Wine European Cruise coordinated through the House of Travel. There were 65 in our group. The winery gave each stateroom eight bottles of wine, and we visited three wineries during the cruise. We spent two nights at Hotel Berna in Barcelona and two nights at the Intercontinental in Athens.

Hotel Berna is located in downtown Barcelona only a few blocks from Ramblas, the main pedestrian mall where many locals and all the tourists roam. This was my second visit to this wonderful Catalan city with Gaudi architecture. I saw the Gothic area and Sagrada Famalia from a whole new perspective. We walked all around the block of Sagrada Famalia, and learned new information about the future construction of the cathedral. Our guide told us it will take another 40-years to complete. In the Gothic area, we were directed to the Roman ruins section, and other narrow streets that I had missed on my first visit in August of 1999. Some things looked familiar as they should, but a revisit to this wonderful city only witted my appetite for more. On our second day, we toured two wineries outside of Barcelona. The Freixenet Winery is a huge operation, and during our visit we saw where they stored 150 million bottles of wine on four floors below ground level on vehicle trains. We saw their production facilities, and of coarse tasted some of their wines. Their logo is a boy carrying a wine bottle.

The Torres Winery is a bit smaller operation, but they also have wineries in Chile and Sweden. Torres Winery also provided us with a better reception of good snacks and different kinds of wines - about six or seven, but who?'s counting?

On the following morning, we were given a quickie bus tour of Barcelona before our embarkation on the ship, but we also stopped at the Gothic Area and Sagrada Famalia for short walks. We were on board the ship by 1:30PM.

Some of Gaudi's architecture.

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Why I love the Gothic Area of Barcelona.

The section of Roman ruins.