Off to Barcelona

As usual, our multi-week travels begin at 3:30am in the morning with a Super Shuttle ride to the airport.  Being a regional airport, flights out of Sacramento International are very early in order to get you to larger hub airports or other transfer airports.  For us, it's a 6:00am United flight to Denver where we will transfer to Air Canada to Montreal.  From Montreal, it's an overnight flight to Barcelona.

Our Air Canada flight to Montreal was on an Airbus 319.  Because the ticketing for the United Airlines partner airline had difficulties, I sat in seat 28A and Mary sat in seat 28F.  Both of us had window seats in the same row.  Funny stuff.  On this plane, there was an individual screen on the back of each seat along with a USB port and an electrical receptacle capable of 120V and 220V.  The entertainment was free.  I watched Paris at Midnight, a Woody Allen film.  Not bad.  On arrival at Montreal it sort of reminded me of London Heathrow in that each passenger gangway that connects to the planes was sponsored by HSBC.  Same thing at London Heathrow. 

Upon exiting the plane at Montreal, Mary and I took the longest walk to Canadian Border Control that I believe I have ever taken.  About a mile of walking with all of our luggage.  There were moving sidewalks but it was still a hike.  Both Mary and I cleared Border Control quite easily.

After Border Control, we exited into the Montreal gating area for our next flight.  The Barcelona flight was to depart in 2 hours.  Next to our gate was a superb gelato shop and a foreign exchange booth.  I exchanged $20 U.S. for 16 Canadian dollars and a bit of change.  So much for our sinking U.S. dollar.  This bought us each 1 medium gelato and one bottle of Dasani water.  They only had Evian or Dasani.  

The flight from Montreal to Barcelona was ontime for departure.  It appeared to be an older Boeing 767-300ER.  No overhead pop-down monitors.  Instead, there were larger screens in a couple of places in the plane.  Our seats were 13 rows from our screen.  The seats and passenger heads in front of us were high and cut off the lower part of the screen.  The resolution on the screen was not the best either.  Fortunately, we rented The Kings Speech and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 1 and placed in on our IPAD 2.  We watched The Kings Speech.  Mary watched it again. 

The flight to Barcelona was uneventful.  We arrived in Barcelona at 7:20am.  A few surprises when when we got to the Barcelona airport.  First, they don't seem to have enough gates so many of the planes have to park out on the ramp area.  You have to carry all of your luggage down stairs and then hop onto a group of buses that are very low to the ground.  We were then driven to Immigration where again, things were uneventful. 

From previous research, I knew that there was a Renfe train station at the airport.  Well, not really at the airport.  It's really about 2 miles away.  You catch the green connecting bus to Terminal 2 which is also 2 miles away.  You get off at Terminal 2 but then you go up to an enclosed overhead walkway that goes to the railway station.  That's another 1/4 mile walk. 

At the train station, Mary and I purchased the Tarjeta Dorada (gold card).  This is a discount card for senior citizens.  They logged our birthdates into the computer.  But, for Renfe travel on Monday-Thursday you get 40% off.  For Friday-Sunday train travel, you get 25% off.  Our tickets to the Barcelona Sants main station was 1.90 Euros.  The journey took about 25 minutes.  From the train station, we took a taxi to our hotel.  13.80 Euro for the taxi fare.  We got to our hotel on La Rambla at about 9:30am.  Fortunately, they had a room available for us and we were able to check in a catch a short nap. 

Pictures begin in the next post.