Gruenhundstrasse: Puentes

"Puentes" means "bridges" in Spanish!

Here's our cruise ship, the Costa Deliziosa! (Which is basically like Italian for "Delicious.") So here is our delicious ship - we didn't actually try eating it, but the food ON it was good. We set out on our 11-day cruise. We made many stops, and three of them were in Spain. Let me tell you about them!

Look at this cool parking lot! Actually, it was some sort of shipping point for Volkswagen in Barcelona right near the docks. (In case you couldn't figure out what they were shipping!)

Here's a giant anchor we saw near the port.

Here is a store that we saw that we thought was kind of weird.

This is the most famous thing you will see in Barcelona. It is called the Familia Sagrada Basilica, and it was designed by Antoni Gaudi. They started building it in 1882, but it is still not finished yet, as you can see by the cranes in the pictures.

Which begs the question - why the heck haven't they finished it yet? Apparently it was first being built solely on individual contributions, and then stopped during the Spanish Civil War.

It has an estimated completion date of 2026. WOW! Check back in a decade and see how they're doing...It's definitely the most "different" cathedral I have ever seen, and you know I've been to a lot of cathedrals now!

Here is a statue of Christopher Columbus. The Spaniards like to claim him as their own, since he was finally given his commission to sail by King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain.

Sunset with weird arch thingies near the port of Barcelona.

And now...back to our ship...

The next Spanish stop on our cruise was the port of Cadiz, which is not far from Seville, the old capital of Spain. This is the Plaza de España, which is a government building in Seville. (See us on the bridge?)

They have lots of pretty bridges that are painted in cool designs. Almost the whole building and bridges are covered in colorfully painted tiles.

It's really pretty!

Is this looking familiar to you?

Do you get the feeling you may have been here before?

Seriously...that fountain, the bridge...the tiles...the plaza....

Well, if you've seen Star Wars II (Attack of the Clones) then it SHOULD look familiar. Here are Padme and Anakin walking through the Plaza de España. Who knew Spain is on the planet of Naboo! (Actually, we didn't realize it until we just watched the movie the other day and got that "oh my gosh, I've been there" feeling.)

So there is this cute little moat that goes around the whole thing, under all the bridges. And guess what?

We rode on these teeny tiny little boats that you can paddle around the moat.

It was fun!

I didn't have to paddle. Kieran and Daddy fought over the paddles.

This is what it looks like under the bridges.

There was tile everywhere, even the sides of the building.

And there it is - The Plaza de España (or the capital of Naboo, depending on what realm you live in, or how big of a Star Wars fan you are...)

Next stop in Seville was the Palace of Alcazar, where Ferdinand and Isabella lived, and where they granted Christopher Columbus his ships.

It was really big and had lots of courtyards and tile everywhere.

There were confusing pathways and gardens and fountains, all decorated with tiles.

Pretty cool!

You could totally get lost in here!

They had orange trees growing everywhere, all covered in oranges!

Even all the pathways in the gardens had colorful tiles embedded everywhere.

There were palm trees, too.

And that was Alcazar Palace.

Our third Spanish port of call was Valencia. There is a cool part of town that was recently built called the "Ciudad de Artes y Ciencias" or the City of Arts and Sciences. It has parks all around it and lots of funky modern architecture.

Let's play "spot the bridge." As you can tell, my dad really, really, really, liked this bridge.

Can you spot the bridge in this picture? Great job!

Okay, this is not the bridge. But it's a place we visited. Most of the buildings there are museums. This one was Europe's largest Aquarium, called Oceanografic.