Category: Rio to Barcelona

We finally arrived in Barcelona and were cleared to leave the ship at 1:30.  Our cab took us to the hotel which is just 2 blocks from Sagrada Familia.  It was a perfect location. After unpacking, we strolled around the area and had tapas at a recommended restaurant a few blocks away.  From…

We arrived in Casablanca, Morocco’s largest city early in the mooring.  A pilot boarded the ship around 5 a.m. to guide us into port. Rabat, A World Heritage Site–modern capital and historic city: a shared heritage Our tour to Rabat and Casablanca started at 6:30 a.m.  We went to Rabat first where…

The journey to Tenerife from Cabo Verde is about 870 nautical miles; that gave us another two days on the open water, traveling along the coast of West Africa.  Tenerife is in the Canary Islands, an archipelago in the Atlantic off the west coast of Africa.  It is the southernmost Autonomous Community…

After three days at sea, we came to the Cape Verde Archipelago off the western coast of Africa.  Before the arrival of the Europeans, the islands were uninhabited.  They were discovered by Genoese and Portuguese navigators around 1456.  The islands gained their independence from Portugal in 1975.  There are many reefs, shipwrecks, and sharks…

After two days at sea, we arrived at Maceió.  A pilot boarded the ship at 6 a.m. to guide us into port.  Maceío is the capital of the state of Alagoas in Northeast Brazil. It is located between estuarine Mundaú Lagoon and the Atlantic Ocean.  It has a population of 1 million and…

Here is our ship. The MSC Orchestra is 964 ft. long and 105.6 ft. wide. It haas 16 decks has carries 2500 passengers and 1000 crew. It is the largest ship we have been on in over 20 years. It was easy getting 10,000 steps just going to the dining…

Christ the Redeemer In the two days we had in Rio, we hit most of the landmarks. We were staying on Copacabana Beach, so the location was ideal. We started off at Christ the Redeemer, atop Mount Corcovado overlooking the city of the Rio.  It sits in the middle of the…

When Bob found a cruise that went from Rio De Janeiro to Barcelona, it looked perfect: Two cities on our list to see and a cruise linking them. While getting to Rio from Seattle was difficult and long, the trip let us cover a lot of territory that was new…