Our 2016 trip to Portugal, Gibraltar, and Spain
In 2016 a group of friends invited us to go on a Windstar cruise to Spain.
Windstar started out with sailing ships but later purchased several small cruise ships that had about 200 suites per ship. The advantage of this type of ship is that it can go up rivers and through locks to visit ports that larger cruise ships cannot.
The trip originated in Lisbon Portugal and from their we went around the southern tip of Spain stopping at Gibraltar and the final destination of the cruise was in Barcelona.
We stopped at several ports around the tip of Spain. They were all memorable, but our favorites were: Seville, Gibraltar, Almeria, and Palma. Before the cruise we spent a couple of days in Lisbon and the group of four couples took a private tour around the city. Our friends that are all seasoned travelers told us that private tours were the way to go and they were correct. We had a wonderful lady by the name of Madalena Ferrao from Sintra Magik private tours take us all around Lisbon to points of interest, private wine and cheese tasting, and a wonderful lunch in a quaint restaurant on the sea. It was raining this day, but we didn’t mind it a bit. The tour was fabulous!
When we boarded the ship and departed the first evening the seas were rough and most of the men including myself got mildly sea sick after dinner. For me it was the motion and watching waves roll over the windows in the main dining room that did me in! Surprisingly the ladies were all fine because they were smart enough to wear their sea sick prevention bracelets to dinner! The remainder of the cruise was great weather and smooth sailing!
After visiting all the ports on the cruise, we arrived in Barcelona and the next day we took another private tour around the city and into the mountains. Our tour guide was a wonderful man that was a teacher and his knowledge of the city was amazing. He was very accommodating and took us out of the way with our tour bus looking for special gifts for our loved ones back home! The two most amazing parts of the tour was a trip to the Santa Maria de Montserrat Abbey in the mountains, and a tour of Sagrada Família church that was designed by Antoni Gaudí. The final part of the tour was the Park that was conceived by Eusebi Güell and designed by Antoni Gaudí. Like the church, the park was covered in structures with a naturalistic shape and created from natural elements such as river stone and adorned with millions of pieces of colorful tile.
This was truly a trip to remember! If we were to go back we would spend more time in Portugal. This is a wonderful city.