Houma and her two boys who are friends of my cousin Sidney and his family joined us in Barcelona. After our dinner in Moncho’s she showed us her hotel right next to Plaça Reial and a few meters away from the famous tourist attraction Las Ramblas.
At night the tree-lined 1.2 km. pedestrian mall known as Las Ramblas (or La Rambla) was lit up beautifully and had many stores and eateries on both sides. As beautiful as it was I was deathly scared to bring out my camera to take pictures. This was the only one I took. A lot of guides I read online warned tourists that there were a lot of pickpockets in the area since the place was teeming with locals and tourists the whole day. We all had a deathly grip on our bags and cameras. It worked since we managed to leave with everything we owned.
The Hotel Barcelona House was located in a busy street with restaurants and bars. If you like to be in the middle of a lot of activity this would be a good place to stay. I just don’t know if you can hear the noise in the room. Personally I wouldn’t stay here since I would have to pass Las Ramblas everytime I leave and go home and my nervousness about the potential crime would be too stressful.
The hotel lobby was small but very modern and colorful.
We all had a geeky time admiring the lighted elevator floor.
That’s Houma below showing us her room. It was quite roomy and had 3 beds. I think she paid only €100 a night and that was a good deal.
Her bathroom and shower was definitely better than the one at our hotel.
This restaurant was just outside the hotel.
We then walked to the Plaça Reial (Plaza Real), a square located next to Las Ramblas surrounded with restaurants. It’s a popular tourist attraction specially at night.
We passed by this organic food store called Artisa. I wanted to have dessert there since the pastries and the apple pie looked really good but my cousins suggested we walk around and look at the other options.
Artisa
It’s nice to have a big open square in the middle of a busy city.
Plaça Reial
We didn’t find any place to have dessert at the Plaça Reial so we went back to Las Ramblas and saw Cafe De L’Opera De Barcelona, a nicely decorated restaurant which had some customers so we assumed they would have decent churros.
Like the online guides said beware of peddlers like this guy who went in the restaurant and tried his best to sell us roses.
Even though we kept saying no firmly he still put the roses on our table. After more vocal and louder “No” and various hand signals he finally left us in peace.
This had to be the most awful churros and chocolate ever! The chocolate was thick from cornstarch period. There was no chocolate taste at all. The churros were obviously just re-fried and was still doughy inside. I just took a bite and had to spit it out. The next day our tour guide told us not to eat any establishment in Las Ramblas. I wish we knew it beforehand. Oh well it was an experience I want to forget. We should eaten at Artisa!!!
Hotel Barcelona House
C/ Escudellers, 19 08002 Barcelona
telephone: + 34 933 437 167
website
Art i Sa Barcelona, S.L.
2 Colom street (Next to Plaza Real)08002 Barcelona
telephone: +34 931 863 623
website
Cafe De L’Opera De Barcelona
La Rambla, 74 08002 BARCELONA
telephone: +34 933 177 585
website
Shoot First Eat Later 
Leslie, I couldn’t believe churros in Spain is not easy to find when you looking for a really good place that serve it. How is back home? I make my own and stuffed it with nutella inside.
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Our tour guide told me most of the places just get their churros delivered already cooked and that’s just plain sad.
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First of all, eating on the main street in any city is like eating on Nathan Road HK, in other words….don’t. You need to go to the side streets, in HK think Hankou Rd, Peking Rd, Hanoi Rd, etc. In Barcelona, Churrería Granja Ruz on Carrer de la Princesa (120 meters from Las Ramblas) would have been a bettter choice. The decor of Café de l’Opera just screams tourist trap.Also, if you want fresh churros (and they do need to be eaten fresh out of the fryer), you generally need to order them during daylight hours, they are a breakfast & merienda dish in Spain.
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Good insight but in HK the food in Peking Rd, Hankow rd. etc happen to be very good. Some of my favorite restaurants are located there.
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I wish we knew about Churrería Granja Ruz!! We did get to eat really good churros c/o Marta our tour guide who showed us where to find it.
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Too bad you didn’t join us when we went to a Churreria in San Seb. The kids were clamor ing for churros after our hike to Mt Urgull. After trying to look for any place selling churros ourselves, a waiter in some restaurant told us to go there. It’s an old place that made the churros themselves. The kids, including Ethan, devoured order after order. We thought we couldn’t get them out of there 🙂
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