Thursday July 4th

Independence Day…the perfect day to sleep in.  After waking up a little past noon we left to walk down Las Ramblas and to visit the Maritime Museum.  We saw a couple new statues on the Ramblas, included an awesome rendition of Galileo Galilee.  Part of our trip also included Dunkin Donuts and candy from La Boqueria.  The Maritime Museum had a few special exhibits, including a long tour about Charles Darwin.  (What Darwin was doing in a Maritime Museum is beyond me, but we did pay to get it so we got our moneys worth).  The best part by far was the main chamber.  The museum was built in what remains of the Reials Drassanes, or the Royal Shipyards.  The building is located on what used to be the edge of the ocean.  This was where the kingdoms ships were built and repaired.  The interior was full of Gothic arches with metal rings inset to help hoist the ships free from the water.  The shipyards themselves had been in existence for over 800 years and haven’t undergone any type of renovation or major architectural alterations in the last 400 years.  This along made the museum really cool, but the final factor that made this museum worth the entry fee was the full scale replica of the Galeria Reial (Royal Galley).  This was the flagship, commanded by Don Juan of Austria in 1571, when the Spanish battled the Turks in the Battle of Lepanto and established themselves as the dominant naval power in the Mediterranean.  Our entry also included free admission to the Santa Eulalia schooner anchored in the harbor, so we got to go check out the ship before heading home.