Catalunia

 

Travel plans for 2018 include a trans-Atlantic repositioning cruise ending in Barcelona, followed by some touring in Madrid and Seville.

...if Spain isn't then in a civil war over Catalunia.

Catalunia is that part of Spain that includes Barcelona and environs, and for the longest time they have considered themselves something other than 'Spanish'.  They have their own language, Catalan, and still use it daily except with the turistas.

Once upon a time Europe was a collection of hundreds, maybe thousands, of semi-autonomous duchys and kingdoms, and war was a weekly event, almost always centered on 'religion' unless it was 'border security'.  Then in 1648 came the Peace of Westphalia, wherein all the major players re-dealt the deck and gave the blue monopoly properties to France, the yellow properties to Spain, the Orange properties to Prussia, the red properties to Great Britain, and recognized independence for anyone else who could adequately defend themselves.  Europe became a collection of two dozen or so 'countries'.  Catalunia wasn't one of them.  It was now part of Spain, along with Andorra, Navarre (where the Xavier family lived), and a few others including the Basque region (you may have heard that the Basque also don't think of themselves as entirely Spanish).  The same thing happened along the border between Germany and France, and with regard to an island off the west coast of England whose inhabitants still consider themselves 'Irish', pronouncements of The Holy Roman Emperor to the contrary notwithstanding.

Things have been — umm — relatively quiet with the Basque lately.  At least there haven't been many loud noises.  Not so with the Catalans who have been making independence noises for many decades going back before Franco.  Recently, they have gotten bolder and now plan an independence referendum which Spain has forbidden them to do.  To prevent the independence referendum taking place, Spain has shipped in brigades of Guardia Civil, state police, even going so far as to charter cruise ships for them so they'll have someplace to sleep given expectations for Catalan incivility.  Barcelona longshoremen have refused to let those boats tie up.  Within the week, 14 high-ranking Catalan politicians were arrested at their homes.  The stage is set, and it's almost as if Spain wants a civil war with the region that provides the bulk of Spain's GNP.

Keep your fingers crossed and don't turn off that TV set.