Yay! Barcelona! One of our favorite cities. The skies have cleared, the temperature is a balmy 68 degrees, and we are in port right on time at 7:00a. We hop off and head to the metro. This is the first time we’ve ever walked from the dock – it’s a hike – but we count it as our early morning exercise.
Takes us 45 minutes to the metro station, but then its an easy trip to the Estacio Sants to pick up the train to Sitges, an adorable little beach village 1/2 an hour up the coast from Barcelona. We just missed a train leaving the station, but they go every 20 minutes, so it wasn’t long before we were on our way up the coast to Sitges.
It’s a beautiful day to be touring the Spanish coast. Sunny, bright, but cool. We navigated our way from the train station through pedestrian areas and down to the beach promenade without much trouble. Not too many places open this early and we had to do a little searching for a cafe where we could have cappuccino. Every place along the beach was a hotel where they were serving the hotel breakfast – we just wanted cappuccino, so those didn’t seem like much of an option. We settled on a place up the street more into town and had the best chocolate croissant along with our cappuccino. Turns out this place was a hotel too – but whatever – it worked! Also the first time ever we had to take an elevator to the bathroom. There were stairs in the back of the cafe, but for some reason the girls there told us to take the elevator to the basement for the WC. Pretty weird.
After our break, we headed out to the beach promenade where we walked along the beach for a while. It’s a huge beach – long – with a fantastically landscaped and incredible well taken care of promenade stretching all along it. (There are signs all along the grass border that warn of a 750 Euro fine for letting animals do their business there or for humans who walk on the grass.) We basked in the sunshine and the fresh air for quite while, taking in all the low rise hotels that morphed into individual homes and villas the further away from the town we strolled.
Heading back, we spent some more time idly wandering through the pedestrian areas of Sitges. We stumbled on a great palace that is now a museum – Palau Marycel. Sitting at the top of a promontory, with a commanding view of the ocean and the town – you could wander in between the Palace buidlings through the most picturesque alleyway. The palace architecture was amazing – the doors, iron work and the windows! We took tons of pictures of the detailed sculptures used as ornamentation for the windows. It was just fantastic.
The whole town was really great. From the relaxing beach, the waterfront promenade, pedestrian zones with cute little shops (including the “Happy Pills” shop that sold candy in little medicine bottles with remedies you could 
choose!), we can see ourselves coming back to visit, it was a nice change from the city and looked to be a great place for a quiet getaway – at least in the shoulder or off season.
Back in town – we took the subway all the way to Catalunya so we could walk the Ramblas. Everything was so familiar yet different. It was February when were last here, and the warmth and change of season brought so much more life out to Las Ramblas. We meandered off the main path and had a snack at Estruch, a cafe that was established in the 1800’s. Right across from the cathedrale off Las Ramblas, we had an enjoyable snack of iberico prosciutto and octopus (Ed is getting his fill of Pulpi – that’s for sure!).
Later we wandered through the back streets, ending up outside Los Caracoles (my favorite restaurant from our very first visit to Barcelona years ago) and then back on Las Ramblas and the long walk back to the ship.
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