We did not take an excursion but found Barcelona a fairly easy city to navigate, especially after listening to Dr. Stephen Wesley's excellent lecture. There was cab waiting when we got off the ship, and we took it directly to Gaudi's famous Sagrada Familia cathedral. We did not go in (you need to get tickets ahead of time for that) but walked slowly around it, taking in the details of this still-unfinished dazzling work. From there we grabbed another cab and asked to be dropped off at the food market on Las Ramblas. This was an amazing market, for fish, Spanish ham and other meat products, produce and everything you could think of. Then we made our way through the old quarter to the Picasso Museum, where we saw many of the master's early works. We found a little tapas place for lunch. I always thought tapas were "small plates," but these were quite large, and we got to taste that delicious ham, a tortilla (Spanish omelette) and other specialties. We grabbed another taxi and went to Miro Foundation, a wonderful building with Miro's works well displayed inside and out. By this time I had the taxi app downloaded on my phone (I'm not sure why I didn't use Uber) and summoned one to take us back to the ship. This was a great way to get to see the things we were most interested in without a lot of extra expense.

The excursion I wanted to take (to experience the mud baths) got canceled so we didn't book one here. It turned out to be a perfect place to simply walk around and look at the beautifully restored buildings and to enjoy the many pedestrian streets.