Final Thoughts

All in all it was a very successful trip. NCL was more than adequate and the larger ship and good weather made for smooth sailing. The Gaudí Sagrada Família is amazing and a “must see” for anyone visiting Barcelona.
The people of Spain were quite friendly to tourists; especially the staff in the restaurants.
It was unfortunate that the Tourist Information places were often closed. We think it was a combination of the time of the year; siesta breaks and bad luck.
The roads we drove were in good repair, we just didn’t stay on them, blindly following our GPS. Five out of every ten cars that passed us were BMW’s doing at least 140 KPH on the toll highways.
They use two languages in Spain: Spanish (Castilian) and Catalan (Valencian); wished we had known that sooner.
The flights to Europe were uneventful but 7 hours in Economy across the Atlantic, wait times in airports and 6 hour time differences take their toll. We took the melatonin at each end which did help but I fear theses long trips will come to an end in a few short years.Read more