Hotel DO & Liceu Opera House of Barcelona 16-17Apr2015

This would be the first time flown into Barcelona for us

as last few times has been visited by cruise ships.

After relatively short limousine ride 

by a very friendly driver 

without much traffic jam,

we arrived in our hotel DO Plaza Reial.

This cute boutique hotel is located in 

the right middle of La Rambla!

 having beautiful Spanish breakfast 

in the hotel restaurant on Plaza Reial 

which included in our room rate 

was really lovely for three days!

 welcome sangria by the hotel

Plaza Reial views from the hotel rooftop

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Next morning, we went to tour of Liceu 

Opera house The Grand Theatre of Barcelona.

Opera Carmen was on which we already have seen elsewhere.

It was rather short tour of the theatre

but we are very glad that we did

 as we didn't see any opera.

 Night view of Liceu is actually better than the day time photo

 tour guide

Emirates A380 to Barcelona from Dubai 16Apr2015

Fly with one of the best air lines in the world in it's first class was quite an experience!

Couldn't believe the Emirates allocated a whole floor on huge Dubai airport 

just for the first class lounge and direct access to the plane exclusively!

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Interior of A380 is very spacious and finished in beautiful glossy burl.

There are 4 seats on each row and we took window seats each.

There are three flight attendants serving first class and 

there were only three passengers occupied on our flight.

We were absolutely impressed by their detailed service

and quality commodity.

I ended up drinking 7 glasses of Dom with black caviar.

I was one very happy passenger.

Bathroom facility was very generous in space and 

the inside of shower cubicle was surprisingly big as well.

7 hour flight was rather pleasure in the end.

Dubai en route to Barcelona from Sydney 15-16Apr2015

We booked a 31 day cruise from Barcelona to 

Copenhagen on ms Eurodam HAL.

Direct flight from Sydney to Barcelona would be 

quite an audacious journey 

when you have already passed the middle age.

So, we decided to stay in Dubai for two nights as a pit stop.

 Al Murooj Rotana Hotel where we happily stayed.

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Most of touristic part of Dubai was covered in our last visit few years ago, 

so we decided to check out old Dubai, Deira this time.

It is a charming area where Dubai's traditional gold souk, spice souk and 

perfume souk can be found along side a creek.

 Entering Gold Souk

spices galore...

 Dubai Creek

 purple color is the one that used for indigo colour

 Dubai Mall the world's biggest shopping mall

 Food from this Lebanese restaurant in the mall was pretty good