Hotel Condes De Barcelona by Daniel Scott
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The Hotel Condes de Barcelona is one of the city’s best located upper echelon hotels, situated in the core of the modernist Quadrat d’Or, on Passeig de Gracia just above the Ramblas. The two renovated 5 floor nineteenth-century palaces – facing each other across Mallorca Street – that comprise the hotel are diagonally across from -and in sight of- one of Barcelona’s landmark Gaudi buildings, La Pedrera. The hotel is also just a ten minute walk to another of the architect’s masterpieces, the unfinished Sagrada Familia cathedral.
Inside the hotel is modern, suitably stylish for Barcelona, and apart from a rather squashed reception area, surprisingly spacious. The older of the two palaces – the Casa J Daurella, built in 1872 – is the more characterful inside, with a spiral staircase that twists up to the roof with some aplomb. On the roof here you’ll also find a sun-trap roof terrace and bar, with adjacent Jacuzzi.
Executive rooms in the older historic building consist of a king size bed (with snazzy Barcelona-style reading light), taking up roughly half of the main room and a small entry-corridor, at the end of which is long marble bathroom, complete with small tub. The only complaint here is the shower head that doesn’t go above chest height on anybody above average Spanish height. Modern light brown polished wood and mirrored wall panelling predominates in the bedroom giving it a fairly conventional but comfortable feel. Rooms have all the normal features of a modern four-star hotel including safe, satellite TV and connectivity for the business traveller. They also have small balconies and while it is unlikely you’ll be ready to breakfast there, such is the traffic noise from the streets below, you may feel like braving it later in the day for a gin and tonic or two. At night the brouhaha from the city that rarely sleeps is kept to a minimum by a determined set of double-glazed doors in each room.
Breakfast is in the small ground floor sea-themed restaurant and can be a bit shoulder-to-shoulder on weekends but what is on offer, from standards like fresh fruit salad to Spanish favourites such as tortilla and chorizo, is certainly plentiful and fresh enough. During the rest of the day Mediterranean seafood is the speciality.
Service in the restaurant is friendly, if a little pressed, and elsewhere in the hotel is, at best, a little uneven. At worst, staff at reception in particular, come far too close to treading over the line from studied diffidence to rudeness. Of course, it was only a matter of time before those who service the unrelenting growth in the Barcelona tourist industry began themselves to believe the hype about the city. But treating customers with any sign of disdain is unacceptable.
Nonetheless, unless you are looking for a new best friend among the staff here, this is a well-located and comfortable pied-a-terre for those following the city’s tourist trail of the Ramblas, Medieval quarter, Picasso museum and the many Gaudi highlights. It is not entirely clear what is meant in the hotel brochure when it declares the property to be “beating with Barcelona” but it is certainly convenient to be so close to the city’s restaurants, clubs and bars and yet to be able to step inside away from it all into quiet and clean environment.
Alternatively, take a look at our entire selection of luxury hotels in Barcelona.