In any case, we took the Blue line back to La Pedrera via Plaza Catalonia. We bought a tour, which included the walk though one of the apartments and the access to the roof. To be fair, if you do buy the tour bus ticket, you get a booklet of discounts for all major venues, including La Pedrera. In any case, the tour inside magnificent La Pedrera starts with a decorated apartment from Gaudi's time. Personally, I found the architecture beautiful, but the space rather non functional. Gaudi's designed are aimed to astonish and impress, but they have not become widespread for a reason, they are neither economical nor ergonomic.
Probably the most worthy part of the tour is the visit to the roof. Strange sculptures of fantastic forms and shapes look particularly bizarre as a foreground of the city. The sculptures reminds visitors of endless interplay between order and chaos. All sculptures are symmetric and consist of repeating elements, yet on the whole each structure is unique.
After taking many pictures on the roof of La Pedrera, we caught the Red Line and headed to another Gaudi's creation, called Parc Guell. The Parc is situated on the steep hills above the Eixample district. Inside the Parc there is a mixture of different structures spread around a few acres of greens. In the center of the Parc there is a large elevated terrace that has spectacular views of the entrance to the Parc and city of Barcelona. The borders of this terrace are covered by broken colored stone - a technique used often by Gaudi. The main stairs to the terrace are adorned with a fountain with a statue of a frog, also decorated with the colored stones.
In the early afternoon we had back to the hotel to get our luggage and to get to the Royal Caribbean Splendor of the Seas. The taxi to the port was about 20 euros. The catch was that we ordered it via hotel clerk and had to pay for the trip that it made to the hotel. If we would have hailed one on the street we would pay 1/2 as much.
The boarding went rather quickly, we were even surprised with how casual security was. The stateroom turned out to be pretty spacious, much bigger than we had in our previous adventures on Princess Cruises. Except size, however, it was rather unexciting. It had this sort of worn look and feel.
After we unpacked we went for a tour of the ship. Like the stateroom it had a slightly warned look and feel. The lunch buffet was rather unimpressive, and even disappointing. In general the food on the cruise was one of the bigger disappointments. The buffet had the same limited tasteless selection every day and the dining room was trying to sell unsophisticated and sloppy food for a gourmet meal.
But who cares about the food when you have such great destinations?
All pictures from this trip
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