Barcelona, our second port of call, and the second drafting of this article

We docked at Barcelona this morning, and the ship won't be leaving until 10.30pm tonight. Despite warnings of rain, the weather today has so far been warm and sunny. Mrs PBT's and I caught the shuttle bus into town earlier this morning, which dropped us next to the city's World Trade Centre. 

This area, is where Barcelona's famous Las Ramblas starts from, but despite this there were no bars, cafes, or shops in the immediate vicinity. We have both been to Barcelona before, and in my case on several previous occasions, but with Eileen not fancying the long hike along this pedestrianised thoroughfare, we decided to return to the ship.

There was a "Duty Free" shop, back at the cruise centre, as there seemed to be at virtually every other location we stopped at, so after stocking up on various goodies, we re-boarded the ship and treated ourselves to a spot of lunch in the posh restaurant. I say "treated" even though the restaurant is part of the "all inclusive" package that applies to all passengers. Despite this it's still nice to be waited on from time to time, especially if it means avoiding the melee that ensues in the buffet at busy times.

We've got a day at sea tomorrow, which culminates with a passage through the Strait of Bonifacio, the narrow stretch of water separating French Corsica from Italian Sardinia. The following morning  would see us docking at Civitavecchia - the nearest port to Rome. I've booked a full on tour around the Eternal City, which proved to be interesting, especially as it would be my first visit to the Italian capital.

At the time of writing this article, I hadn't managed to connect my laptop to the internet, and as things turned out I never did hook up. Consequently, this quick post was typed up on my phone, and it is only now, some four days after returning to the UK that I am editing the piece and adding in the odd photo, or three. I subsequently restricted my use of the laptop to typing rather a lot of articles, in the form of Word documents, and these will be added to the blog, when we return to the UK.

I closed the original post by saying I was being hassled by Mrs PBT's, to nip along to the onboard launderette and check if our washing had finished its cycle proof, if it was needed, that this cruising lark isn't all glamour. You do get to meet some interesting people whilst doing the laundry, and if you manage to keep on top of it - which we did, it does make things that little bit easier with the homecoming.