November 11, 2019: A Visit to Park Guell
	November 10 - December 7, 2019: Barcelona to Buenos Aires Cruise
	Return to the Index for 2019

Of course, since the cruise embarks in Barcelona, we have to get there, and the trek began at 9AM on Sunday morning, November 10th.

The Trip from Dallas to Barcelona

Most of our packing was done on Saturday, and since we had to leave the house early on Sunday morning for our 9AM flight to New York's JFK airport, we retired fairly early on Saturday night.

For one reason or another, I found myself unable to sleep much at all- wondering whether all the travel would work out, whether we'd hook up with Greg (who we'd taken to the airport on Saturday as he had an entirely different routing) easily in Barcelona, whether the cruise would be a success, and so on. I couldn't seem to shut off all the concerns, and so I was up even before the alarm went off at 515.

The day began with our first-ever ride with Uber, since calling on a friend so early for a lift to the airport would have been a bit much. I was pleasantly surprised about how efficient the Uber app was, and how easy it was to schedule a ride days ahead of time. Our car showed up exactly on time, and we were off to DFW a few minutes after 7AM.

This was the first time I've flown in over a year, and I discovered that TSA Pre-Check status doesn't, apparently, last forever, so we had to go through the regular screening line. Fred made it through easily, but I was delayed and something in one of my carryons seemed to cause even more concern, so it took me twenty minutes to finally get into the concourse.

Platinum status on American still gets us priority boarding and our choice of seats, so getting aboard the flight to New York was pretty easy, and just after 9AM we were in the air.

The flight was uneventful, and about 2PM (New York time) we were landing. Getting off the plane, it was a bit of a hike to our departure gate for Barcelona, but as both flights were on American, at least we were in the same terminal complex.

While there are almost hourly flights on American from DFW to New York, they go to three different airports, and leaving Dallas at 9AM was the only way to ensure that we would get to JFK in time for our 530PM flight to Barcelona, so once we got to our gate in New York we had a 3-hour wait until we could board the flight to Barcelona.

There wasn't much to do, so we just read or used the free Internet access until the flight was called. I got up a few times to walk around, and took a couple of unremarkable pictures with the new camera that I had brought along (a backup for my older one). One picture looked out the window across the gate area towards the city (which was too far away to see). We were in a new section of this particular terminal, and the concourse was very utilitarian- very much unlike the older, classic TWA terminal that most folks think of when they think of JFK airport.

About 4PM, the gate area started to fill up, and we began boarding a bit before five PM.

I usually like to select seats in exit rows, but on the Boeing 777 they are always bulkhead seats, and Fred prefers to have a seat in front of him to put one of his bags under. So we sat in the aisle and window seats of the three-seat row just behind the two-seat bulkhead row on the starboard side of the plane. Fred had a seat in front of him but I didn't, so that worked out well. The flight wasn't packed, and we lucked out in that no one sat between us.

It was an eight-hour trip to Barcelona, but the time passes fairly quickly these days as there are movies galore to watch via the seat-back entertainment systems. I, myself, had brought a large inventory of my TV shows that I watched on my tablet (as I didn't see a movie that I particularly wanted to watch). I spent my eight hours watching four or five episodes, consuming the two meals provided, and playing some games on my tablet.

I don't sleep on airplanes, so for the second night in a row, I didn't sleep at all, and by the time we landed in Barcelona just after 7AM Monday morning Barcelona time, I'd gone with out sleep since Saturday morning- almost 40 hours.

These days, one is always apprehensive about luggage, but ours made it with us to Barcelona. I changed some money at the airport for the cab ride into the city and to the hotel that Greg had booked for us for the two nights before we got on the ship.

Our Hotel(s) in Barcelona

We actually had two different hotels in Barcelona, not counting the ship itself, where after we boarded on the 13th, we stayed that night in port.

Greg had arrived the day before us into Barcelona, and he had told us that he had gotten a hotel online and would reserve a room for us for both the nights we needed in Barcelona.

On our arrival, I got a text from Greg telling us to go to a different hotel instead, and so we gave the taxi driver directions to the HCC Taber Hotel, just a few blocks from Plaza Catalunya. Greg met us at the hotel when we got there with an interesting story to tell.

When he arrived the night before, he found that the hotel where he had made a reservation wasn't open yet; the building in which it was to be located was still undergoing renovations (and, indeed, one of the ground floor tenants of the building, a sex shop, hadn't even closed yet). So, seeing this hotel right across the street, he chose it instead.

I asked him why the website allowed him to make a reservation at all, and he rather sheepishly showed us his confirmation; the reservation was for 2020, not 2019, and the hotel would have been open by then. Greg had simply not noticed the wrong year.

No problem, except that the HCC Taber Hotel only had rooms for us for one night; we would have to find a different hotel for the second one. While we were out that day, we did find another hotel for tomorrow night, just a few blocks away.

The next day, we changed hotels for our second night, schlepping our bags around the corner and down the street a few blocks to the Hotel Praktik Rambla. We had to do this early in the morning as we had an all-day trip to Andorra on tap. When returned from that trip, it was already late, so we didn't do much around the hotel or take any pictures. On the 13th, though, the day Fred and I went to visit Sagrada Familia, we did do some exploring around the hotel after we returned and before we departed for the cruise ship.

At the Praktik, you come in off the street via a long entryway, and then through some doors into the small lobby. There, you had just enough room for the small desk to check in and out, a small office, a baggage room, and the elevator.

Like many older European buildings that have elevators, this one had its elevators in a central shaft, and the stairs up and down wound around them. We were on the third floor, and the view at right was taken from the third floor elevator landing looking down to the second floor.

Also like many older buildings that were constructed before central air-conditioning, this hotel building had a central air shaft designed, of course, to get fresh air and some light into the interior rooms of the building. Our room was on the front of the hotel, but the drawback to that was that until very late at night there was a fair amount of street noise.

When we checked in on our return from our day trip to Andorra, it was late at night, and all we did was go out to dinner and retire. But on Wednesday morning, before we went over to the Sagrada Familia, we had breakfast on the second floor where, at the rear of the hotel, there was a common room and outdoor space.

Looking Out to the Patio

From the second floor elevator landing, one goes north into a little breakfast area to pick up some coffee, tea, and something to eat. The a hall leads west to the back of the hotel where the common room is located. In the common room, there is a large refectory table where you can sit and eat, a library stocked with books, and a number of chairs scattered around. At the back of this room there is a semi-circular row of windows with doors in the middle, with the semi-circle sticking out from the back of the hotel to the outdoor space. Along the windows there is a banquette and little tables where you can sit and have a drink. But the outdoor space is really neat. This is common in Barcelona; the blocks all have interior spaces where you will find parking and various patios and balconies. Many of the buildings around the edge of the block will use this interior for various purposes- but mostly so the occupants of the buildings will have access to an outdoor space. The hotel had a beautiful outdoor patio with lots of seating areas (although it was just a trifle chilly to spend much time out here. But I did take some pictures around the patio; here are some of them:

(Click on Thumbnails to View)

All in all, we thought the Hotel Praktik Rambla was a nice place to stay. The room was comfortable and the price wasn't exhorbitant, and the location was certainly right in the middle of things.

You can use the links below to continue to another photo album page.

	November 11, 2019: A Visit to Park Guell
	November 10 - December 7, 2019: Barcelona to Buenos Aires Cruise
	Return to the Index for 2019