SUMMARY: Excellent location, clean, adequate, and reasonably priced, but no view, elevator began a…read morehalf floor up from street level, and irritating nightingale floor [1].
GENERAL: Our taxi driver told us Airbnbs were illegal in Barcelona. Which was an exaggeration [2] and such a warm welcome. Also, he accurately predicted rain all week (light and sporadic, but glum). Airbnb requested our review for their own system due 15 days after our visit on 29 May.
NAME: Barcelona Ramblas Appartments, Airbnb Barcelona
MY RATING: Good (3.5/5)
PHONE: +34 638 432 453
E-MAIL: Michael (Airbnb)
LOCATION: Carrer de Colom 4, Barcelona, Catalunya 08002, Spain
Just off the Plaza Reial and across the alley from the famous Los Carocoles Restaurant.
REVIEW TITLE: "Good but Peculiar" [TripAdvisor #209; Yelp #86; 28 May 2016]
TRIP: TransAtlantic Cruise to Barcelona, Spain, and a week on our own.
SERVICE: Good, but quirky. We e-mailed them many times about dropping off baggage a few hours early. They keep saying they would handle that closer to the time and never did. There was no greeting, but more like a contact in a spy novel, on a street corner (We were beginning to believe the taxi driver). In the room, she gave us a series of peculiar operating instructions. Odd, but not excessively restrictive, and they worked. May have been due to quirks in an old building. Then she disappeared.
BUILDING: Old, but neither historic, nor picturesque; however, adequately maintained. The small glass-metal-wood elevator was appreciated, but it began 15 stair steps (around half a floor) above the ground floor. This was very inconvenient for baggage. Some large, thick wood doors with metal fittings were aesthetically pleasing.
APPARTMENT: Our apartment was on the third floor, very near the elevator, through a door into a small, closed atrium with 3 apartment doors, which muted any elevator noise. The quite secure door opened into a small, albeit, useless entrance pallor, then a hall to the left with bathroom, kitchen, and bedroom, respectively, off the left of the hall, and ending in modest dinning/living room. The thin parquet wood flooring was not secured properly and made a loud croaking-squeaking noise [1]. We folded up and stored a dangerous throw rug in the hall immediately. Windows had no views and no security, but were unapproachable from the outside. Everything was small but adequate. Bathroom had a tub with shower, bed was rather low, and there were no ice trays. Internet was available, but slow.
SECURITY: The apartment was safe. Surrounding area bustling with tourists and appeared reasonably safe. We never were out late.
NOISE: Generally quite. There was some sort of loud, joyous street party one night, but the commotion was not that bad and did not last long.
COMMENT: Everything was rather nebulous [no names used or given, no organization name other than Airbnb]. We had the feeling they may not have been registered [2], but too late to ask.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] This was similar to the Nightingale floors we experienced in Japanese castles. Those were purposely constructed in to warn of intruders.
[2] "Tourist-heavy Barcelona is Cracking Down on Airbnb" http://www.citylab.com/housing/2015/12/barcelona-airbnb-tourism/421788/
