Our European Vacation

In celebration of our 5th wedding anniversary (yes, I know, 5 years already!) we hopped a flight across the pond to Spain. After spending a couple days in Barcelona, we boarded a cruise ship and cruised to Marseilles, France, Sardinia and Sicily and then back to Barcelona. We had a fabulous time. Below are just a few highlights and photos. If you are so inclined, more photos are uploaded here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/26038463@N07/. However these are still just a handful of the almost 1400 photos we took.

-Ann

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Barcelona:

What a great town! Imagine putting a city as historic, clean, walkable, and featuring as much great architecture as Chicago in the location of a Miami or a Los Angeles -- or better yet, on the French Riviera (okay, the Spanish Riviera). That's Barcelona. For me, at least, it doesn't get much better. The city's harbor area is great -- with plenty of beaches (clothes optional), waterfront parks, and tons of boats to look at. There's a huge bluff right in the middle of the town near the shore called Montjuic, where most of the 1992 Olympic Summer Games venues were built. Great for walking -- more like hiking, actually, strenuous hiking. Oh, and seafood lovers like me will never be at a loss for something new to try when sitting down for dinner. Funny story, though. I thought, since I am fairly proficient in Spanish, that communicating in Barcelona would be no problem at all. One problem. I forgot that in Barcelona, and the rest of Catalonia, they speak a different dialect than the one we were all taught in High School. If you ever go there, keep in mind that Catalunyan is much more similar to French than it is to the familiar Castillian Spanish. This slight snag did not at all diminish our enjoyment of this great city.

Here are some highlights:

La Sagrada Familia: Construction began on this massive, Roman Catholic church designed by Spain (and maybe Europe's) most renowned architect, Antoni Gaudi, in 1882 and continues to this day. Gaudi, known for his eccentric nature and almost neurotic attention to detail, devoted the last 15 years of his life to designing the church, living and dying there -- which is why it is incomplete. The design calls for 18 towers (four of which you can see in the picture), representing in ascending order of height the 12 apostles, the four Evangelists, the Virgin Mary, and the tallest of them all, Jesus Christ. When complete, the Christ tower will stand more than 560 feet.

Casa Batllo: Probably the most amazing house I've ever seen -- inside and out -- another Gaudi work. Again demonstrating his wackiness, it seemed like Gaudi was trying at all costs to avoid using a straight line in the design of this house. Much of the facade is decorated with a mosaic made of broken ceramic tiles. The roof is arched and likened to the back of a dragon or a dinosaur, complete with shiny scales. A common theory about the house is that the rounded feature to the left of center, terminating at the top in a turret and a cross, represents the sword of Saint George (the patron saint of Catalonia), which has been plunged into the back of the dragon. There are even hallways inside that appear to be very skeletal. Pretty awesome place.

Parc Guell: That's Annie standing next to Gaudi's favorite animal (yes, he's even involved in the construction of the city's flagship park) -- a chameleon. There are many stone arches, patios, staircases, and other public areas decorated in typical Gaudi fashion -- complete with ceramic mosaics and unusual shapes. We liked the chameleon so much we got a miniature magnetic version of him to put on our fridge and a scaled down ceramic version for our display cabinet.

Oh! And Barcelona even has a competitive and historic sports team. FCBarcelona (Futbol Club Barcelona). It's one of Europe's oldest and most successful. I realize that rooting for FCB would sort of be like being a Yankees fan, but if we some day move to Barcelona to open up an English language bookstore (which we talked about due to the shortage of such places and how successful we gather one of them could be due to all the tourism), I think that as long as I would have to seriously watch soccer every day (snore!), I might as well follow a winner.

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Marseilles:

The first stop on our cruise was Marseilles, France. The city, while the second biggest in France in terms of population, felt like a quaint fishing village, complete with dockside seafood vendors (which completely freaked Annie out due to her aversion to fish, both dead and alive -- and there were some still alive on the tables)...

...and other family businesses lining the harbor. By the way, who in the world eats eels?! Yuck.

Those food options aside, we found a great place for breakfast/brunch, where we got a basket of bread with about twelve different kinds of spreads. Chocolate, white chocolate, dark chocolate, honey, strawberry preserves, hazelnut spread, etc. Needless to say, Annie was in heaven, and that meal alone made the stop in Marseilles worthwhile to her.

Here's the spread: Oh.. and the meal also helped Ann develop a hopefully short-lived love of Cappuccino. (Most of you know how much I hate the smell of coffee.)

Anyway.. I was much more interested in the trek to the city's highest point to visit Notre Dame de la Garde. It's a basilica situated on a limestone outcropping on the south side of the harbor. They even let us into the sanctuary when a service was going on. Hundreds of tourists trying to cram themselves through very old, very slow-moving revolving doors. Yeah. Not a good thing. Not to mention how loud and quick with the flash photos the people were once they got inside.

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Cagliari:

Our next port of call was Cagliari, Sardinia. We hardly had any time in Cagliari, our time on shore only lasting about 3 hours, but it turns out that was enough to enjoy most of what this town had to offer. It's a very picturesque seaside, and mountainside, town -- it just doesn't have a lot to do or see. For me, the highlight was an old Roman amphitheatre that's still in use today. (They've set up more modern chairs there, as well, as you can see.)

Probably the funniest thing we saw there was a guy on one of the sidewalks with a mother cat, several kittens, and a band of mice all sharing the same stool and water dish. Cats and mice living together!? Mass hysteria!

And.. last, but not least.. the most important lesson from Cagliari: If you order a Latte in Italy, all you get is milk. Annie learned that the hard way. :-)

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Palermo:

Our final stop on the cruise was Palermo, Italy. Sicily, baby. Very mobbish. Cool. Certainly the busiest city we visited on the trip, just crossing the street was an adventure here in Palermo. The higlights in my mind, awesome pizza and awesome mummies. That's right, mummies. Freaky ones, too. Some of the guys stuffed in the monestary's catacombs were put there in the 1500's and still have their skin! Unfortunately, no photography was allowed so I can't show you any of MY pictures from the catacombs, but here are a couple I found online:

Originally, the catacombs were intended only for dead friars. However, in the following centuries it became a status symbol of sorts to be entombed there. In their wills, local rich folks would ask to be preserved in certain clothes, or even to have their clothes changed at regular intervals. I guess you can't wear white afer Labor Day even if you're dead. In any case, it's weird to see monks in traditional brown robes, and families of doctors in top hats and tuxedos in the same place. The Spanish painter Velazquez is the catacombs' most famous inhabitant.

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Well.. that's my commentary on the places we visited before, during, and after the cruise. As for the cruise itself, it was great. The ship was huge, the food was good, the people were nice, and I love vacations where people do most of the work for you. Crusies are so relaxing, not having to lug your luggage everywhere, etc., that I'm already looking forward to our next one -- even though we have no idea when that will be. Some destinations I would love, though, include Hawaii, Australia, and a trip to Egypt. Come to think of it, I haven't even been to Mexico or the Caribbean yet, either, so those places would also be fine. Well.. we have a lot of options.

-Nick