La Ciudadela - Barcelona, Spain     

We spent 4 nights in beginning of May 08 in this hotel. Location is really good : around 30 minutes walk to the Ramblas, 20 minutes to Barceloneta and being next to Ciudadela Park is also a plus. Note that hotel is also close to Estacio de Fran?a, which is the terminus for the train that links airport to city centre. We used this train connection and were happily surprised that it was for free (don't know why). Rooms : there are 13 rooms, which are all situated on the first floor (level above ground floor, I mean). Note that there is no lift, so for disabled persons this will be a problem. There is no real lobby as such : you check in at the counter of the bar / restaurant downstairs. About 8 rooms look out over an avenue towards the park. Note that hotel has two room categories : rooms on outer side of the building and rooms on inner side. 'Exterior' rooms are more expensive (about 12 euros per night). We had 2 double 'exterior' rooms and I wondered if I would book these again : you have indeed a nice view, but on the first night we were woken up by loud voices just below. Somebody thought it were the garbage people who passed by. The three following nights, we did not have this problem anymore. Traffic noise is not disturbing, neither did we hear noise from neighbors. Note that temperature was still moderate : we did not use the airco so cannot comment on how silent this is. I believe that size and decor of inner and outer rooms is similar : limited ! Room size was around 18 square meter max. Our double bed was 140 cm wide, which is significantly smaller then our king size at home, but didn't bother us too much. Have to admit that bathroom was in good shape and shower working well. There are rooms that are a bit larger > ask for a triple room, but you will need to pay more. Normal rate 85 euro per night. We received a 10% discount without even asking for a discount. Probably we got that since we booked 8 nights all together. This rate did not include breakfast. A continental breakfast was available in the restaurant downstairs at 5 euro per person and included a small bottle of orange juice, coffee/tea, a croissant, two slices of toast and butter and jam. Too much bread for me : would have appreciated some fruit or yogurt... Taking into account that I searched a lot for affordable accommodation, but it was difficult to find an acceptable (clean and a little bit comfortable) room below 130 euro. Perhaps because it was a long weekend (May 1) ? Therefore, we were quite happy with Ciudadela Parc. Next time, I might check out some hostels in the same neighborhood.

I took my daughters to Barcelona for Christmas and we stayed a the La Cuidadela hotel. The location is wonderful! The hotel is an easy walk to the subway, to the Picasso Museum,and to great shops and restaurants. We enjoyed having the park right across the street, it was a great place to relax. Service was friendly, and it was convenient to have the restaurant downstairs.