The bare essentials for a night's sleep in Barcelon (Hostal Barcelona City Urquinaona, (Barcelona, Spain))

Member Name: fizzywizzy

Product:	Hostal Barcelona City Urquinaona, (Barcelona, Spain)
Date:	13/05/09 (105 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Good, quiet location; cheap,

Disadvantages: No frills at all, could be noisy

As one would expect from a major European city, and one that attracts many, many visitors, Barcelona has plenty of hotels to choose from. Being a money conscious (mean) traveller, I was looking for something cheap but also not too far from the centre as I was not going to be there long and didn't want to travel from the outskirts of town. After some research we plumped for theHostal City Urquinaona and, wanting to save more money, booked directly using the hotel's website rather than through the hostel booking site where we'd first found the hotel. We paid a small deposit and stated roughly what time we'd be arriving. In return we received two e-mails; one was an automatic confirmation, the other a personal message from a staff member confirming the booking and that our arrival time was OK ( we were taking an evening flight to Girona and from there a 70 minute bus ride to Barcelona meaning we'd arrive fairly late).

The hotel is just a minutes walk from "Stancion del norte" coach station which is where coaches from Girona Airport terminate. It's also the bus station for national and international coaches. Urquinaona is equidistant from two Metro stations, Arc de Triomf and Urquinaona. Breakfast is not served at the pension but there are numerous cafes nearby that open quite early. It's a quiet area in that there is virtually no traffic in the evenings and only a little during the day. This is partly because of the grid system that means that a higher street is the main one for traffic. The Ramblas are just ten minutes walk away, fifteen if you take a slow stroll; in the same time walking the other way you can reach the Sagrada Familia.

A staff member was waiting outside for our arrival. We had gone left instead of right outside the bus station and were a few minutes late. He explained that the pension is not staffed twenty four hours a day and gave us a card with a number to call in case of emergency.

The pension is housed on the first floor of a grand Barcelona apartment building and has a rather impressive entrance hall and a small lift. As there were three of us we walked up the stairs. The young man who had come to check us in spoke almost faultless English and very friendly and helpful. He showed us our room, then the shared bathroom and an area where we could find cups and glasses, crockery and a kettle should we want to sort our own breakfast at the pension. There was also a tiny terrace with a few chairs and a table. This was also where smokers were banished for a cigarette as the interior of the pension is no smoking.

Check in was done with no fuss and as quick as you would hope at this late hour. We were given a city map with our location circled (this proved a godsend the next evening when we tried to find our way home after too many Estrellas) and we enquired as to where we might get some food that night. There was no staff member around when it came to checking out, we merely left the keys on the sideboard in the hallway.

If you have been in one of these old Barcelona apartment buildings with the grand entrances and wrought iron balconies you will know what to expect: high ceilings, ornately tiled floors, long narrow apartments with a hallway along one side and all the rooms leading off it. While it was all spotlessly clean it was a little shabby. A loose terracotta floor tile outside the bathroom should really have been repaired for safety's sake and seemed like a job so small it shouldn't have been too much trouble to organise. Layers of dark paint have been slathered over the woodwork giving the impression of an unloved student house. The walls of our room were painted an off white but had obviously suffered various knocks and scrapes and had not been painted over. I imagine that in such small rooms it's inevitable that the walls will easily get marked as people come in with backpacks and cases.

On first glance our room did look like the minimalist, almost boutique style hotel we had seen pictured on the website. However, once you walked in all the flaws started to become apparent. As I sat on the edge of the bed it gave a mighty creak and I feared that this would happen every time one of us moved in the night. As it turned out it was quite comfortable although on the first night we were a little cold and it was only because we were so exhausted that neither of us could be bothered to get out of bed to get a blanket out of the cupboard and shivered intermittently instead. We did have a window and this looked out on part of the terrace although nobody came round to this section of it. I should imagine that the room gets pretty stifling in the height of summer and I don't think I would have contemplated staying here between mid May and late September.

There are only a handful of rooms, doubles and triples, and just the one shared bathroom and toilet. We woke early but there was already someone in the bathroom using the shower. After twenty minutes of waiting, himself banged on the door and asked the occupant to hurry up. The bathroom was spotless and the water was hot; the only snag was that there were no pegs on which to hang towels and clothing while using the shower. There was a washbasin and mirror in the room but I think that this pension could do with either another bathroom or a separate toilet. There was a hairdryer in the room which was about as much in the way of "facilities" as there was.

Our room was right beside the front door and we feared that it might be noisy in the early hours but it wasn't. However, I don't think the place was full and I would think it would be noisier in summer when it's full of back packers. If you are a light sleeper it might be a good idea to take some earplugs. The heavy wooden door closes with quite a bang and it's likely to wake you if you have the room next to it as we did.

This is a very basic option suitable only really for someone who just wants somewhere to sleep. Even most hostels have more facilities than this. We left the pension at 8.30 in the morning and didn't come back until the early hours so it was of little consequence to use that there were no special facilities or that the room was so basic. Had we wanted to save more money we could have had some breakfast here but with cafes so close and staying only two nights it seemed pointless to buy the necessary items and so even the provision of glasses and crockery was of no use to us. When we arrived late at night, tired after a full day at work then the travel from the UK I was tempted to say "We need to start being less mean when it comes to accommodation" but as we checked out I realised there was nothing we needed this pension didn't have.

And the damage? Just under Euro100 for two nights. Cheap for this part of Barcelona.

c/ Bailen 13 Principal 1ª, Barcelona

Summary: Bargain no frills accommodation in the heart of Barcelona