Museu Maritime de Barcelona

On a recent trip to Barcelona I visited the Maritime Museum. It is in a most impressive building near the harbor and had the advantage of being dry in the pouring rain!

It starts off with an exhibition about shipbuilding in Barcelona, several models of ships:

Followed by some nice models of the shipyard and port:

The next hall has the most impressive thing in the museum, a full scale replica of the Royal Galley which was built in Barcelona and fought at the battle of Lepranto in 1571.

A model of the galley:

The full-size reproduction with Neptune riding a dolphin on the ram:

It was surprisingly big, for some reason I thought these galleys were quite small:

The stern towers up:

 Some of the ornate decoration on the stern:

Looking down the length of the galley:

The richly decorated stern with three very impressive lanterns:

Another view of the stern:

The real thing fully manned and in action must have been an impressive sight given the technology of the day and the reproduction is certainly worth visiting if you get the chance, apparently it was constructed using the original construction techniques and it certainly shows the size and power of these ships.

I actually bought a few Langton galleys a while ago but never made any progress with them, perhaps this will inspire me to revisit the project!

There wasn't much else in the museum really though I did notice a model of HMS Victory which was slightly odd as it was by itself with no mention of the Spanish fleet at Trafalgar!:

Now where did I put those galleys?!