Viking Sky: 14-Night Northern Europe from Barcelona

Barcelona cruise port is the busiest in the Mediterranean, handling millions of passengers a year across multiple terminals. The city behind it earns that traffic.

Cartagena is a historic port city of about 215,000 people on Spain's southeastern Mediterranean coast, in the Murcia region. Founded by the Carthaginians in 227 BC (as Carthago Nova), the city has been contested by Carthaginians, Romans, Moors, and Spanish kingdoms, and its layered history shows in the archaeological sites scattered through the compact center.

Malaga cruise port is the main gateway to Spain's Costa del Sol and Andalusia. The city sits on Spain's southern coast, about 130 kilometers west of Granada and 50 kilometers east of Marbella.

Porto is Portugal's second city, sitting on the steep banks of the Douro River near the Atlantic coast. Cruise ships dock at the port of Leixoes, an industrial harbor in the suburb of Matosinhos about 8 kilometers north of Porto's historic center.

Paris (Le Havre) cruise port is the gateway from Northern European cruise itineraries to Paris and Normandy. Le Havre itself is a port city on the Normandy coast where the Seine River meets the English Channel, about 200 kilometers northwest of Paris.

Zeebrugge is a North Sea port about 15 km from Bruges, one of Europe's best-preserved medieval cities. Ships dock at Zeebrugge, but the destination is Bruges: a city of 120,000 people whose medieval center survived the centuries virtually intact because the city's commercial importance faded after the Zwin river silted up in the 15th century, and nobody had a reason to tear anything down.

Amsterdam cruise port has one of the best locations of any cruise terminal in Europe. The Passenger Terminal Amsterdam (PTA) sits right in the city center, about a 15-minute walk from Central Station and the edge of the canal ring.