England and Iberia Day 10

Barcelona on half a tank

Posted by Brian Hart on August 07, 2026 · 11 mins read
  • Start of day: Barcelona, Spain
  • End of day: At sea

I started getting sick yesterday – a sore throat and general blahs that I mostly attributed to dehydration. It progressively got worse while in Palma, and rehydrating (a lot) back on the ship didn’t fix it. I woke up on this Barcelona port day feeling pretty wrecked: sore throat, slight aches, and very tired. Regardless, I knew I needed to make something of our time here.

I left the ship around 8:45am, solo, with a mission in this order: stroll La Rambla, find cold and flu medication and shaving gel, wander Mercat de la Boqueria before the full tourist onslaught, and have a bite of breakfast. I succeeded at all of it and was back on the ship by 11 or so, drenched in sweat and ready to be horizontal. I do wish I’d been feeling more up to it. Sherri and I had a terrific first visit back in 2007 during our European honeymoon cruise. I would have loved to wander away from the hardcore tourist areas and explore the residential blocks, perhaps visit the now-finished Sagrada Familia, and maybe even do the hop-on/hop-off bus.

Well, maybe not that last one. The queue for it at the port was wicked!

A long queue of cruise passengers waiting along a palm-lined pavement beside a red City Tour Barcelona double-decker bus, number 2588, its side lettered City Tour BARCELONA and barcelona.city-tour.com with a JULIA moventis logo and a green ECO-BUS badge. The open top deck shows rows of empty red seats. People in shorts, t-shirts, sun hats and backpacks stand in line under tall palms against a cloudless blue sky, with a second red bus waiting further back. At the right two staff in pink shirts stand beside a red City Tour umbrella and a loaded hand truck.

The Columbus Monument at the foot of La Rambla, shot from across the road against a deep blue sky. The bronze figure of Columbus stands atop a tall fluted column pointing out to sea, the base ringed with bronze allegorical figures and stone lions on plinths, with protective mesh over part of the stonework. Behind it are a glass-fronted tower block carrying a large Samsung Galaxy billboard and the classical stone facade of the port authority building. Buses and a few pedestrians cross the wide junction in the foreground, and birds scatter across the empty sky at the right.

I was so tempted to eat here at Mercat de la Boqueria but my body just wasn’t up to it. I enjoyed exploring, though.

Inside Mercat de la Boqueria, looking down an aisle toward the Quim de la Boqueria stall, its curved yellow signboard lettered Quim de la Boqueria, Barcelona since 1987, with stall numbers 610 611 612 on an orange panel at the right. Diners sit on black stools along the marble counter, an older man in a checked shirt and shorts nearest the camera, while a cook works behind the bar under hanging glassware and a chalkboard menu. Strings of dried red peppers hang in the glass case at the right. Industrial pendant lamps drop from the high timber and steel roof, and shoppers move down the aisle at the left.

Brian takes a selfie in the aisle of Mercat de la Boqueria, filling the right of the frame. He wears a white short-sleeved shirt printed with large blue-grey leaves and sunglasses hooked on the placket, and looks tired and flushed, not smiling. Behind him the market hall recedes under its arched roof -- pendant lamps on long cords, a stall sign reading Mediterranean, shoppers crossing the polished concrete floor, and diners on brightly coloured stools at a counter to the left. A yellow waste bin stands against the stall at the right.

A market stall display at the Boqueria holding tall skewers of spiral-cut potato crisps, deep orange and stacked in ruffled columns behind glass. A card propped in front reads SPIRO PATATA 4 euro, BOQUERIA GOURMET STREET FOOD. Spotlights and a small security camera are mounted on the dark ceiling above. A lower case at the front holds cured meats, stuffed peppers and green olives, and a shelf of packaged saffron with handwritten signs stands behind the glass at the left.

A large coral-pink sign in a metal frame at a side entrance to the market, headed Mercats de Barcelona and Mercat de la Boqueria in white, with opening hours De dilluns a dissabte 8.00-20.30h. Two rows of pictograms below prohibit bicycles, scooters, smoking and dogs alongside information, wi-fi and parking symbols, and the footer gives www.boqueria.barcelona and www.mercats.barcelona. A small panel at the top right reads BOQUERIA 180. Through the dark steel-columned entry behind it, a lit butcher's counter and a few shoppers are visible under the market's timber roof.

Back out on the streets, I set out to find lighter fare.

A narrow Raval street corner in bright morning sun. At the left a small kiosk bar under a green awning lettered MENDIZABAL, its front tiled in coloured squares and hung with festoon lights, a few people standing at the counter; the pale wall above is covered in graffiti tags and a large mural. Ahead stands a plain medieval stone building with a small arched window and an iron-grilled doorway, a tree spilling over its roofline and an ornate baroque stone portal at its left. Two women walk away from the camera along the pavement at the right, one in a white top and denim shorts holding a phone, the other in a white blouse and patterned trousers with a black tote bag.

… settling for this little cafe which ended up being quite good1. A breakfast tray on a wooden cafe table: a plain croissant on a white enamel plate with a blue rim, a takeaway coffee cup with a black lid and kraft sleeve, and a folded paper napkin. A black napkin dispenser sits at the left against an exposed brick wall. Behind, the cafe's glass frontage looks out to a sunlit street where a red-and-white bollard stands; a person in an olive t-shirt sits at a table by the window, and two customers wait at the counter at the right under track lighting.

Siena and Sherri left the ship later in the afternoon to have the La Rambla experience for themselves.

By the way, the La Rambla experience right now is… not good. There’s major construction happening along a significant portion of it. They seem to be building toward something better, which is a worthy goal, but the experience today lacks the anticipated charm.

A green temporary pedestrian sign zip-tied to construction fencing on La Rambla, reading ACCES A METRO with a walking figure, a white arrow in a circle, and the red Barcelona metro M logo beside L3. Yellow flexible ducting runs above the sign along the hoarding. Behind the wire mesh, a plane tree trunk is boxed in with timber boards, red conduit snakes through excavated bare earth, and stacked materials and white bags sit along the dug-up promenade. A couple of pedestrians pass on the narrowed walkway beyond.

Back on the ship, in the evening near sailaway time, I was able to get some photos.

The spires of the Sagrada Familia rising above the Barcelona rooftops, seen at long range through the golden haze of early evening. The tallest tower is capped with a white cross and a construction crane stands close beside it. In front, the dense city stretches across the frame -- office blocks, apartment buildings, a domed roof and a stone bell tower -- and behind, the wooded ridge of the Collserola hills fades into pale sky.

Two women on the ship's shaded outer deck at golden hour, seated on rattan loungers with striped cushions. In the foreground a young blonde woman in a white top turns back toward the camera with one arm along the seat back; behind her an older woman in a blue and white paisley dress sits holding a phone. The deck is panelled in warm timber with a tall white sculptural arch framing a lounge area behind, potted plants in white planters along the wall, and a polished wooden handrail running the glass balustrade at the right, beyond which the orange hull of the Magic Carpet and the port cranes are visible.

The ship's pool deck at dusk, shot from between empty loungers. The bright orange frame of the Magic Carpet platform rises against a deep blue twilight sky streaked with pale cloud, silhouetted above the upper deck's glass rail. Below it the sheltered pool area glows with purple and amber light under scalloped white canopies, a strip of blue-lit water visible through the openings. Furled navy parasols stand at either side of the frame, and rows of grey sun loungers fill the foreground on the darkened teak deck.

Footnotes:

  1. And which I can’t seem to locate again, despite having a GPS-tagged photo from the place and having walked Google Street View. Pretty sure I paid with cash, too. It’s a mystery. ↩

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