JulieVikmanis

Yes, I was going to mention that. Maybe call it something like Help me with apartment choice in Barcelona.

JulieVikmanis

The friendly rentals place pictures look almost too good to be true, espeically at 100 euros. But cruiseluv says it's a well respected agency, so you have that to go on. The area is the very terminal end of Las Ramblas where it meats the sea at the Christopher Columbus monument. I'm not an expert, but I've always understood that Las Ramblas is dodgier the further toward the sea you go on it, and so this could be the worst part--although it looks ok, at least during daylight. Let's hope you can get some other folks who may have stayed in the friendly rentals places or in this area to advise you. It sure looks like a good deal.

danon

the apt is closer to El Born than Rambla ( which is good IMO - I dislike Rambla).
One thing you may ask about is the floor the apt is on.
Barcelona is a busy place, the noise is some places is huge.
We stayed in a very nice 2 bed apt
for 120 euros, so 100 E for a small place does not make it a dump.

CAPH52

Thanks very much, Julie and danon. I'm going to go ahead and start another thread.

CAPH52

Julie, coming back to this thread to ask you a fairly quick question. You suggested both Eixample and El Born. On the Habitat site I've found places we liked in both areas.

Ideally, we'd like both quiet and convenience but I'm not sure that's possible. Would you recommend one of those areas over the other for either quiet or convenience?

We'd really love to be in an area where we can have quiet at night and still walk to most of the places we want to see. And perhaps I should mention that the place we're looking at in Eixample is on the 6th floor. The place in El Born is on the 1st floor. I would have to think the higher place would be quieter.

Again, thanks.

lincasanova

I would prefer the Born for strolling, window shopping and restaurants, and hip places to stop, but I personally, prefer the Eixample area. Once the shops close it should be very behaved whereas the other might get jovially boisterous at odd hours.

And from the first floor.. COULD be annoying.

and very rarely do I ever use the metro. The buses are great and you can walk so much of it.

All said, I obviously have not stayed in either of these places, so hopefully someone can steer you better.

CAPH52

Thanks for your input, Lin!

JulieVikmanis

I do think Born has the edge for proximity to a lot of sights. You sometimes have to cover a lot of blocks in Eixample to get from one destination to another--and those blocks are long. OTOH, they're very predictably laid out on a square grid and it's easy to find your way around.

I like activity, so again, I prefer El Born for that reason. Even so, we weren't bothered by noise. Anything near the Ramblas would seem problematic to me from a noise perspective. But I think either Born or Eixample should be pretty good in the noise department. Of course, you can always hit a place next to a noisy place or just be there on a noisy night. All that said, I think lincasanova makes good points. On balance--and its just a hunch--I'm thinking Eixample might give you the best shot at peace and quiet, especially in a place that's 5 or 6 stories up. Just be sure the building has an elevator!!

CAPH52

Thanks again, Julie.

I just finished reading your very enjoyable trip report. As I said there, you've given me much to think about!

CAPH52

Just wanted to update this by saying that our daughter has agreed to take her grandmother and great uncle to the airport. So we're going to book the morning flight to Barcelona.

We've also decided to take the morning flight back to Dublin on Friday. As much as we'd like the few extra hours in Barcelona, we feel this is the smarter choice for us. Among other things, it'll give us a few hours to spend in Dublin. Something we're probably not going to have a chance to do the week before the wedding. (Though we are hoping to sneak in visits to Newgrange, Tara and other sites near our daughter's in-laws' home as well as a day trip to Glendalough, the Wicklow Mountains and Powerscourt.)

Thanks again for all the great feedback I got on this thread!