Barcelona was the starting point for our April 2016 Mediteranean cruise with Silverseas.  We flew in the day before the cruise, spent the night at a nice hotel and the next day took a tour of the city.  Barcelonans do not identify themselves as Spanish.  They are Catalonians, with their own separate language and would love to secede and form their own country. The day we were there, it rained all day so we saw some of the sights from inside a car window.  It seemed to be a very clean, alive and thriving place to be.  Everyone was very nice.

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We would like to go back and start a cruise in Barcelona, and stopping at ports on the southern part of Spain, ending in Lisbon.