#thegoldenbunontour | Barcelo Raval – where to stay in Barcelona

Barcelo Raval. Oh Barcelona! My friends and I enjoyed a wonderful stay in this beautiful city! Of course, also thanks to our accommodations. We checked into the Barcelo Raval on our second day. Usually, it is quite difficult to find rooms for three people. Most of the times the rooms are simply too small to add a third bed. This wasn’t a problem here!

The hotel is located in the trendy district Raval, which enjoyed a massive upturn in the last decades. Originally, it was a quite poor district with a high rate of criminality. The city Barcelona invested a lot of redesigning work to make it more livable and especially safer. New social institutions as well as a film academy were built, and among others also the new Barcelo Raval in 2007. It is a quite modern building whose architecture attracts attention instantly.

Barcelo Raval Our Room

We had our superior room on the 10th floor. We immediately noticed the HUGE king size bed. All three of us could have easily slept in this bed. The rollaway bed looked so small in comparison. The room itself has a very open design, but, personally, I felt a lack of privacy in the bathroom. Of course, this was not a problem being just us three girls, but it reminded me of China, where I went on a trip with a friend. There was just no privacy at all. The view from the rooms is amazing and on our second day the sun was shining already in the morning.

Unfortunately, we were a bit unlucky with the air conditioning. Due to the outline of the room, it was not possible to open any window and without the air conditioning we would have suffocated. But this made loud, unpleasant noises during the night; that’s why we woke up a few times. We did report the problem at the reception but even the technician wasn’t able to do anything. Without the noise we would probably have slept even better!

The Barcelo Rival has got 182 rooms in total, thereof 4 suites.

Barcelo Raval The suite

I was able to sneak a peek into a suite during a small tour of the hotel; the suite is double the size of our room! In general, the outlines of the rooms are the same on all floors. Just the floor defines the price! All rooms on the lower floors have a kettle, on the higher floors there are Nespresso machines. But this really doesn’t matter for me as a non-coffee drinker. I think the view is worth it to book a higher floor, although the best view of all offers the roof terrace.

Barcelo Raval The breakfast

I could so get used to hotel breakfasts! By then, I had already been on the road for 4 days and the breakfast buffets were more or less all the same. I always started the day with a scrambled egg, croissant, fresh fruit and bread. In comparison to other hotels the Barcelo Raval offered also tasty waffles and churros (that would have been too much for me in the morning).

The hotel opens its doors to the public on Sundays – you can brunch from noon to 4pm. The brunch costs 25 € and you can enjoy it in the restaurant or on the 360° terrace. Find more information here.

Barcelo Raval The terrace

What a beautiful thing such a roof terrace! It was already warm enough to enjoy a few sunny moments. We had been walking so much through the city that we were exhausted on our last day. Therefore, the terrace with its amazing 360° view of Barcelona was exactly what we needed.

Barcelo Raval The design

The futuristic hotel is a real eye catcher in its neighborhood. You don’t see a round cylinder with a steel curtain wall very often. Inside, the hotel is furnished in a modern minimalistic way with special design elements and some colorful highlights.

If you want to quickly discover the city, you can hire a scooter in front of the hotel. It costs 30 € for a day. The hotel also offers bicycles.

For me the Barcelo Raval scores with its location and the roof terrace. The design is exceptional but maybe not everybody’s taste. I like that the rooms are furnished in a clean way. Otherwise everything would have been a bit too much.