Barcelona!

We sailed slowly under blue skies from Badalona towards Barcelona but eventually gave up and put the motor on for the last mile or so.

A huge sea wall guards the harbour and from the small ships entrance to the inner harbour of Port Vell is about 1/2 mile. Fascinating to see the superyacht harbours and dry docks - unbelievable amounts of money being spent on these toys.

Sailing into Port Vell

As we entered Port Vell we realised that we were mooring in a corner of one of these superyacht harbours. Amazing!  We refuelled with a bit of a struggle as the fuel lines were more suited to big power boats and it was difficult to get the pump to run slowly enough for us - 20litres thank you, that’s plenty for us! 

Nod to Christmas - poinsettia 

What a location this port has - a few hundred yards from the bottom of the Ramblas, towards the La Barceloneta district, easy walking distance from all of the main tourist sites - well worth the cost of the harbour fees.

We tucked ourselves into our stern to berth and looked around.  To one side are yachts worth over £10m, 200 yards to other side are super superyachts, A quick sneaky look on the internet showed that one of them, Hampshire II, cost £130m, oh and the owner also has the slightly smaller, at 56m long, Hampshire I! Absolutely amazing and obscene at the same time.  The super yacht industry here must provide a huge income for the city and loads of employment though.
Fantastic facilities as well including the private crew lounge with the best view of the harbour.

Crew lounge

This is one of the great cities of the world and we’ve simply wandered around getting lost and discovering fabulous corners of the city.  We’re saving some of the more well known sights until january when the weather might not be a good as it is now - still in shorts and t-shirts!

We'll get more photos once we've fixed our camera too!

one of the many lovely buildings

Our neighbours

Sunday morning paddle along the beach