Transit to Barcelona

Since I was leaving for Barcelona on Vueling Airlines in the afternoon, spent a leisurely morning walking around the city shopping district. The number of shops and restaurants are incredible in this area. Customer service; however, doesn't seem to be in as abundant as evidenced at the cafe I randomly sat in for a light breakfast. I wasn't interested in buying much but I did opt to buy a paella pan given the amount of paella I have consumed thus far. If you are a shoe shopaholic, this is your nirvana. Never have I seen so many shoe stores all lumped together in one area. Before heading to the airport, grabbed a gelato on a cone. I will say that the cones used here are more of a wafer like consistency rather than the waffle cones I'm used to in the US.

At the bus depot in Seville

There is a 2.4 Euro airport bus that runs every 25 minutes. Given the size of the group, I opted to go via bus. It was an easy bus trip and security was simple to get through. Unlike Barcelona, Seville airport is very small. The traffic in and out of the airport was light especially since it was midweek. In the terminal, I found it interesting that the shops gives out free taste testing of the brandy. After a sampling, I was hooked and bought a bottle. :) A note about duty free shopping, I found the same bottle in a supermarket for 50% less. This just reemphasizes to me the fallacy of duty free shops in airports.

Luckily, my second visit to Barcelona airport was brief. I had looked into taking the subway from the airport but it was too time consuming. The taxi fare to the Four Points Diagonal Mar by Sheraton was reasonable at 35 Euros. In planning the travel logistics, I looked into taking the subway to the hotel. As nice as the subway system is in Barcelona, it was a better option to take a cab from the airport to the hotel.

King Room at Four Points Barcelona

The Four Points was located near enough to the beach and city center to make it attractive. As a business-oriented hotel, the free internet is a nice perk. A hot commodity these days. At times the service was slow, I'm not sure if it was where I was located in the building. It definitely wasn't because of the floor level since I was on level 1. Most of the tips listed on TripAdvisor recommends the top floors for the city views but I'd rather be able to get in and out of the hotel faster rather than waiting 10 minutes for the elevator. The king rooms are bigger than the twin rooms, so if room size is a consideration you might want to pay the extra fee and opt for that room. The continental breakfast offered here is pretty good as well. I didn't get the rate with breakfast but the hotel still offered me a discounted breakfast rate of 9 Euros. After seeing how much a toast and coffee can cost, it seemed a reasonable price. For those who travel frequently to these types of hotels, you know the pastries can be a big hit or miss. In this case, it was a big hit. Even the doughnuts were good, I mean I couldn't find donuts sold on the street that tasted better than the hotel!

 

The hotel is slightly off the beaten path within Barcelona. I do like the fact that you can walk to the beach in under 15 minutes and the number of local restaurants and businesses make it appealing. Sometimes, I just don't like staying in the city center because you don't get a local flavor of the city. Wandered around the local neighborhood of the hotel and ate at a restaurant down the block, Can Toni at Rambla Poblenou 88, 08005 Barcelona, Spain. The waiter was super friendly and recommended some wines that paired well with the tapas we ordered.