I'm going to write a few blog posts here about our recent trip to Barcelona and France.
In Barcelona we stayed at the AC Barcelona Forum hotel next to the convention centre. The hotel has a sleek, hip design which was a visual pleasure. I was unfamiliar with the AC hotel chain which has a significant presence in Spain, Italy and Portugal. I found the guest room size slightly on the small side compared to rooms in Australia and the USA but I'm told this is normal for Europe.
There was a problem with the air-conditioning: it would only heat, not cool. This suggests to me that the hotel has the technical limitation of only one set of air-conditioning pipes running through the hotel and must choose for the whole hotel a date to switch from cooling to heating. There was a saving grace however, the windows would open to permit fresh, cool air into the room:
That's what the sunrise over the Mediterranean Sea looked like. Barely visible in the dawn light at the sea shore is part of the ongoing urban renewal of the area which is either reclamation or demolition/reconstruction.
The hotel staff were generally very good. The room attendants did a great job keeping the room clean.
Strangely, for a hotel which is mainly aimed at conventioneers and the business traveller there was no electrical power point at the desk top to permit laptop and electronic device charging. Instead we used the television power point. This is not an unusual fault, but an unforgivable one in a recently built hotel.
One aesthetic feature of Barcelona is the architecture. The 'culture-led' approach to urban renewal has dictated that great care is taken with the design of new buildings and this hotel precinct is no exception with cantilevered building segments on display. The wedge shaped building standing by itself in the photo below was a transparent glass tower held up by the concrete floors and an exoskeleton.
Above: photo of AC Barcelona Forum hotel from across Passeig del Taulat.
Below left: AC Barcelona Forum hotel
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