I already publicized my infatuation of cruising, but beyond boat life, the cruise afforded us the opportunity to see 4 different places in southern Spain and 1 spot in Portugal. So get ready for a picture-heavy post on all that.
We started in Barcelona, where we spent 2 full days exploring. The travel from Alaska was dreadful. We basically left our cabin at 4pm on Saturday, and arrived in Barcelona Monday at 7pm. That is the tradeoff for life in the in the far north. Some cool highlights would be that we flew across Greenland (in the dark tho) and that Justin’s AK Airlines status got him into the British Airways lounges in Seattle & London, which probably saved our sanity across the crowds. I believe I am at the age where trying to get enough sleep through flights is fruitless and makes your body feel like you did a few rounds with Mike Tyson in 1986.

If the travel wasn’t enough, we arrived to our Airbnb Monday evening to find that there was a power outage in the building. I wouldn’t normally complain since we were planning to go to sleep in the horizontal position, but the power outage meant the elevator was out. We were staying on the top floor of the building, so had to drag our luggage up a total of 99 steps in the dark to a place we’ve never been. Super fun way to start a vacation.

Anywho, we eventually ventured out to explore all the things about Barcelona. I’ve been to Spain twice—once in high school for a week and then I studied abroad for college credits in Salamanca the summer of 1999. Even though I was studying Barcelona’s famous artist Antoni Gaudi in my art history class, I couldn’t afford to head northeast to Barcelona from Salamanca. Gaudi’s elaborate architectural creations inspired by nature were super unique, especially for the 19th century. It was very exciting for me to finally see his works in person 25 years from when I studied them on paper.





Gaudi’s magnum opus was La Sagrada Familia, which is the largest unfinished Catholic Church in the world. Construction started in 1882, and Gaudi worked on it until his death in 1926. They say its completion will be 2026, to coincide with Gaudi’s 100-year anniversary of death. The towers of the Evangelists, the Virgin Mary, and Jesus Christ are the main focus of construction lately, with the highest (Jesus Christ) to be 564 feet. Regardless of its progress, the details are astonishing. We took the “Barcelona in One Day In-Out Tour,” which only gave us an hour to walk around La Sagrada Familia, and we wished we had at least 2 hours for the church. But alas, we still marveled over the details in the time we had.





Besides touring Gaudi works, walking around Barcelona was dizzying for us, as it is a city of 1.6+ million people. We very much enjoyed La Boqeria Market in Las Ramblas area. It was less than a mile from our Airbnb, and we couldn’t get enough of its explosion of color in foods. It was fun to revisit Spain’s cuisine that I remember from my study abroad time, like paella, tortillas and churros.





The cruise departed from Barcelona, and stopped in 5 ports—Valencia, Alicante, Malaga, Cadiz and Funchal, Portugal. There’s ostensibly zero decision-making when it comes to cruising, as most of the vacation is laid out for you. But at the ports, you can book excursions or explore on your own. We decided to do a mix of excursions through Holland America, as well as explore on our own.
Our first cruise port was Valencia, indeed the same Valencia that endured a year’s worth of rain in 8 hours two days before we were to be there. We were really surprised the cruise ships were still going, but the city desperately wanted the tourism to come, and actually the floods happened in a different region than the city area of the port. We chose the 10-mile bike tour around the city, which weaved onto park paths along the Rio Tunia (the old river bed that flooded in the 1950s, which prompted them to build the new river, which now flooded in October 2024!). Valencia had a mix of historical & modern artsy architectural elements, like the Serrano Towers (the old “entrance” to the city). We also loved seeing the old underground Roman ruins, some of which date back to B.C.!




The second port was Alicante, and we chose the Canelobre Cave tour. Caves are always cool, but this one was pretty commercialized, and honestly, the best part of the port was just walking the beach city with lots of agriculture. There’s a beautiful marble-laid promenade dotted with palm trees, olive trees, orange trees and lime trees. If it couldn’t get any quainter, an old castle towers the city.





We had 2 excursions cancel on us for Malaga, so we decided to just walk around the city ourselves to see more unfinished 17th century churches still undergoing construction, more Roman ruins, and Picasso’s birthplace.




Cadiz was the next port, and I did love our chosen excursion to kayak along the coastal reserve of Sancti Petri to a fortress from the War of Independence (Roman era).



The last stop before crossing the Atlantic was our favorite, Madeira, Portugal. It’s a volcanic island off the coast of Morocco, yet is part of Portugal. I was very excited we were cruising in between Tangiers, Morocco and the Rock of Gibraltar, but it was at night. We did step outside to “see” Africa, and I captured this grainy picture of “the rock.” Wish that could have been a port stop!

Anyway, Portugal’s island of Madeira is only 35 miles long and 13 miles wide, and the hills rise up 4,000 feet to the inactive volcanic crater. We didn’t go all the way up, but we did take the cable car halfway up to the village of Monte to visit the Monte Palace Tropical Gardens. Highly recommend visiting this unbelievable collection of exotic plants. Plus, there were a few museums included, such as the rock museum with more than 700 mineral samples and tons of the famous tiles of Portugal lining the pathways. Oh, and there were flamingos roaming the gardens!! We spent hours in this garden. Then we took a “toboggan” ride back down the hills. If this sounds like a hokey tourist trap, it is! But it was exhilarating and unique. Apparently, traditional basket sledges date back to the early 19th century as a mode of transportation for local residents. For the tourists, 2 men with white suits & hats control the wicker basket from the back and whiz you down the narrow streets with the regular traffic!








So that was our Southern Spain tour!
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Why do flamingos stand on one leg?
Great post. You soak up the local culture in such a way that your descriptions are captivating!
Wow, great photos! How cool about the flamingos. The cart ride looks fun!