Barcelona Hotel Reviews

Barcelona Hotel Reviews
The hotel trade may seem centuries removed from Miguel de Cervantes's 17th-century description of Barcelona as "repository of courtesy, travelers' shelter" but, as the author of Don Quijote discerned over 400 years ago, the city has a weakness for pampering and impressing visitors to its leafy streets and boulevards.


Barcelona's pre-Olympics hotel surge in the early 1990s was matched only by its post-Olympics hotel surge in the early 2000s. New hotels now spring forth all over town while old standards frantically renovate and redesign in an effort to keep up. Architects Ricardo Bofill and Rafael Moneo are busy creating new and surprising skyscrapers, facades, atriums, and halls, while hotel restaurants have become increasingly important, with the Majestic's Drolma, the Arts's Arola, the Condes de Barcelona's Lasarte, the ME's Dos Cielos, and the Hotel Omm's Moo, all at the pinnacle of the city's gastronomy.

Hotels in the Gothic Quarter and along the Rambla no longer lag in luxury behind the newer lodgings in the Eixample or west along the Diagonal, with waterfront monoliths such as the Arts, W Hotel Barcelona, and the Eurostars Grand Marina leading the way. Many Eixample hotels are set in restored and streamlined late-19th- or early-20th-century town houses and offer midtown excitement and easy access to all of Barcelona. The Claris, the Majestic, the Condes de Barcelona, the Neri, and the Colón probably best combine style and luxury with a sense of where you are, while sybaritic modern palaces such as the Arts, the Omm, the H1898, and the new W Hotel offer design excitement and state-of-the-art technology and comfort. The Hotel Omm, in the Eixample, caused a sensation with its Zen-inspired design and culinary excellence.


Smaller hotels in the Ciutat Vella, such as the Sant Agustí, Hotel Market, or Hotel Chic & Basic Born are less than half as expensive and more a part of city life, though they tend to be noisier and less luxurious. Overlooking Barcelona is the Gran Hotel La Florida for those who want to be up and out of the fray.