You can't really miss the "B" Hotel, or is it Hotel "B"?
There's a damned great stainless steel letter B on the roof.
This is not some new way of advertising that you're the second best hotel in town (not such a bad idea on reflection, as who's going to argue with you?), but it's just the B from its home city Barcelona, affectionately known as "Barça" to both locals and soccer fans alike.
A good hotel can really be the icing on the cake of any city break, and the "B" was no exception.
It wasn't cheap, the daily rate at weekends being €180 for a double or twin room, and that's before you tack on breakfast at €13 each. However, the weekday rate was hugely reduced to €100, so overall we spent €380 on our accommodation for 3 days.
This is somewhat more than we usually spend but our air flights with BA from Heathrow were entirely funded by Tesco's Clubcard points converted into Air Miles!
FIRST IMPRESSIONS
You can see that "B" from the Plaça de Espanya, where we got off the Aerobus from the airport. This is also the "B's" nearest Metro stop, being only two hundred yards away; that's when you become proficient enough at finding the right entrance/exit from the bowels of the earth under a huge roundabout.
As I approached towing slightly-larger-than-cabin-baggage behind me, I thought "My God, it's a bit modern for us isn't it?"
Well the B really is only 3 years old, but its styling seems more "Bauhaus" than "21st Century Chic". This is no bad thing as it will no doubt continue to look stylish without "facelifts" for decades to come.
In a city where even 100-year-old buildings can look as unusually fresh as the day they were put up, this should come as no surprise.
The entrance is guarded by a solid oak sliding door which somehow manages to get out of your way just in time, every time, despite my distrust of these things when fitted to shopping malls. There are gentle ramps in the marbled floors to suit both suitcase haulers and wheelchair and buggy pushers. The lobby is two-storeys high with the breakfast lounge forming an overhanging mezzanine.
The multi-lingual staff speaks excellent English, which is just as well, as I don't suppose many people, me included speak Catalan.
Whilst the entrance to the lift lobby seemed to be jealously guarded by a Danny de Vito look-alike, he took the hint that we didn't need our cases ushered to our room, since they were only overnight bags and had wheels. Thus, there was also no embarrassment trying to find a suitable tip amongst the large denomination notes supplied by the ATM!
This did of course mean foregoing the "tour" of the room, which was to have repercussions later.
On entry, the room seemed to be the same proportions of any other western hotel room you've ever been into, i.e. a rectangle with a chunk missing to the left or right of the door for the bathroom.
However, the décor was something else. With the exception of some globe-shaped lamp shades, there was hardly a curve in the place, it being largely straight lines, in the Bauhaus tradition I mentioned earlier.
This is the first hotel room I've ever been into where the bathroom felt like it was in the room, not in an oppressive way, but thanks to glass walls between it and the main room, it gave a much greater feeling of space.
For modesty, there was a Venetian blind between room and shower cubicle, sandwiched in between a double-glazed panel. The "throne-room" was beyond a further dark glass sliding door and safe from prying eyes (and ears!).
Initially, we thought the blind was fixed with no apparent means of altering its horizontal "voyeur's delight" angle, but later perusal of the hotel's written material unearthed the word "motorised", but of the switch was there no mention, and more to the point, no sign.
I know NOW where it was but oh how we laughed when we found it was built into the only mains plug socket in the bath room.
Nothing was labelled, not even in Catalan.
Combine this with 'joystick' mixer taps and you could have hours of fun with water……. from either side of the glass.
I'm not sure if labelling would have done any good though, as even after being shown how to work the safe, we still couldn't without the embarrassment of asking to be shown all over again!
Oh yes, Mr. "B" - wouldn't it be a good idea to make sure that it is the "On" switch on the bedside panel that glows in the dark, not the "Off" switch; surprisingly enough, I can find the latter as the lights are on at the time!
Lack of documentation aside, it really is a good place to stay. We'd opted for a room at the back, and got what must have been just about the best night's sleep we've had in a hotel for ages. Of course, the downside is that you don't have much of a view.
FACILITIES
There is no half- or full-board tariff so that rules out there being any kind of full blown restaurant. Obviously there's the previously-mentioned breakfast lounge, and the ground floor bar served some pretty good tapas, but for dining look elsewhere. In a city like Barcelona, this is NO problem whatsoever, and one of our main reasons for coming here.
All rooms had free internet access both wired and wi-fi, but the two PCs freely available in the breakfast lounge were more than adequate for keeping tabs on my list of e-mails, invites to lengthen my wedding-tackle and to buy the pills to keep it that way.
Flat-screen TVs in the room now follow the common practice of having an assortment of foreign language programming, which usually manifests itself as Sky News and BBC World alone for English-speakers.
Mini-bars in each room are reasonably priced for this genre; certainly no dearer than room-service.
The crowning glory for the "B" was its roof-top "infinity pool" which is my first encounter with one. A piscine with no apparent edge and a horizon that trickles over a 7-storey drop is quite dramatic and a dip in it takes a supreme test of your faith in engineering until you realise that the water doesn't actually flow over the edge of the building, just into a trough a few feet below. I'd be more concerned about being in a room immediately below, with all that water quite literally weighing on my mind. The pool wasn't large, but in summer, I guess it would be a welcome relief from the city heat. Even in April, it was a good sun trap.
CATERING
Breakfast was pretty good value, even at €13 each since you could stoke up for the day ahead with something akin to a "full English" and all the usual trimmings you'd expect to find these days - fruit, yoghourts, cereals, toast, jams etc. Even the coffee wasn't half bad, which seems to be no mean feat for a hotel. What is so difficult in putting soluble solids into hot water is beyond me, or more to the point, beyond most hotels.
The ground-floor bar was pretty neat and stylish, with service at your table or sofa, and they had a reasonable selection of tapas to keep the wolf from the door.
CONCLUSION
Friendly efficient staff.
Not cheap but one of the best night's sleep you'll get in Barcelona, thanks to heavy double glazing, which leads to rooms at the back being near as damn it silent.
Stylish surroundings slightly marred by the lack of instructions on how to use them!
Good but slightly off-centre location nonetheless convenient for metro, airport buses and circular hop-on-hop-off bus tours.
Just about the only genuine down-side I could think of is the fact that the totally windowless lift landings are rather stuffy, even in April.
Featured merchant
