We will have a day in Barcelona during our upcoming July 12 Med cruise on the Diamond. I was wondering if any of you who have visited the city could recommend the best way to explore and see as much as possible in a day. We weren't sure if it would be better to use the bus system, hire a taxi to drive us around, or simply take a tour from the ship.

Thanks,

Sue

Sue

When I was there I did 2 half day tours from the ship. Feel like I saw more than enough. It was Nov 1st - a holiday - so many of the stores, restaurants, etc were not open so all there was to do was tour. So much from the ship is the Gaudi architecture and most passengers took those tours. It is a city where you have to be careful of pick pockets - sort like Rome. One passenger was rolled for $10,000. Now why we has carrying that much I don't know - but poof, it was gone!! I know there are several on this board that absolutely love Barcelona so hopefully you can get better information from them.

Sue...I've been to Barcelona several times - there is a bus that circles the sites and I think you can catch at the end of Las Rambles - near the Columbus Statue. I haven't done that, but I've hear good reports.

Link for bus information

I have used a driver on two occasions and always asked for particular sites - that takes some research on your part, but they usually recommend things that are interesting if you are open to that.

I wanted to see all the Gaudi sites and they are outstanding, but there is much more to Barcelona than one architect!

If you're interested in Art there is a wonderful Miro museum as well as a museum devoted to early works by Picasso.

One of my favorite guidebooks for almost any area would be the Eyewitness Guides. They publish a volume for Barcelona. It's a good purchase for planning your visit, or just taking an armchair tour of Barcelona.

Betty and Margo thank you for your valuable suggestions. I appreciate the warning about pick pockets as I was not aware this was a problem in Barcelona. The Eyewitness Guide is a good idea and should help us decide if we want to use the bus system or if one of the ship's tours will work for us. I used an Eyewitness Guide in Stockholm when we did our Baltic cruise and found it to be very helpful. I should probably order them for Rome and Florence too!

Sue

We were in Barcelona post cruise for several days. We liked the on/off bus tour thing. Very easy to get an overall view of the city and hop off whenever you wanted to explore further. The Gaudi architecture and the Miro and Picasso museums were the highlights for us. :app: We also loved walking on the Passige de Garcia. Reminded us of the Champs in Paris! Have a great trip! Bonnie