MARINAVIEW Bed & Breakfast is located on the very edge of Barcelona’s old town, and historic centre, as it opens on to the port and the Mediterranean Sea. Especially well placed for visitors keen to explore its cultural heritage, for intense beach holidays, for interesting shopping, for gourmets (all also for less picky diners), for sports enthusiasts, frantic to catch a Barça game, for night-life fans, or for those who would combine all of the above. We are downtown, a couple of minutes from Las Ramblas, and the Columbus Pillar, a 20 mins walk from the beach (or 10 min bus ride), 2mins from the bus stop for the shuttle to the Cruise Terminal.
Barcelona’s medieval city, still buzzing with shops and restaurants is more or less on our doorstep. This means you are rarely far away from the front door and can drop in and out continually throughout the day.
In the last few years Barcelona has become one of Europe´s favourite travel destinations. It is now rated as Spain’s most popular city by visitors, ahead of Madrid, Cordoba, San Sebastian even Granada. Its tree-lined streets, its friendly people, its fascinating architecture, its delicious Mediterranean cuisine, it’s lovely spring and autumn weather (July and August are strictly for the some who like it hot), its many and varied shops and department stores, its intense cultural life, its football team, its circus atmosphere in Las Ramblas, it’s chaotic half-African fleamarket and its lively night life combine to make it the most adaptable of places, whose charms have been found very hard to resist, even to the most seasoned cynic.
Bathed by the Mediterranean Sea and sheltered by green mountains, Barcelona has managed to combine the best in innovative contemporary culture with its solid medieval and glorious “Modernista” past. Famed among the Spanish as the country’s most lively, cosmopolitan centre, it has been a magnet for artists and writers for centuries. It has a world class opera company (Liceu), likewise symphony orchestra, a lively theatre life, art galleries at every turn and incredibly variegated Mediterranean street life, with fiestas, markets, processions etc.
Located on the seafront promenade and flanked by two of the city´s major arteries (Vía Layetana and Las Ramblas), MARINAVIEW is one of a mere handful of lodging options that offer a view across the harbour and to the Mediterranean beyond. You can see the ferries from the Balearic Islands slowly come and go, and at night to the right, the bright lights of the cruise liners twinkle in the middle distance. We are directly across the street (and the water) from two of the city´s oldest and most prestigious yacht clubs, from he ever popular Aquarium, the Imax (3D cinema) and the Maremagnum mall with its night clubs, restaurants and shops. Early risers can contemplate the sun slowly appear over the eastern horizon, before the city awakes from it’s brief slumber.
With due respect for the classic style of our 19th century building, the rooms have been completely renovated to a high standard (with individual bathrooms incorporated), but maintaining the homely feel proper to a bed and breakfast.
We are a 20 minute walk (10 minute bus ride) from the city´s most fashionable beaches and surrounded by some of Europe´s most impressive historical, artistic and architectural monuments. The ruins of an excavated Roman city, the quiet streets and squares of medieval Barcelona, the amazing curves of the Modernist buildings of the Eixample neighborhood, Gaudi’s gloriously eccentric Sagrada Familia and contemporary buildings going up all the time manage to maintain Barcelona’s reputation for innovation and visual delight. All this is within walking distance or a short metro ride from our front door. The trouble is there’s just too much to experience on only one visit.
