A word about the place we stayed at,“39 Steps”.
It’s an apartment, just off La Rambla, in the heart of the Old City (on a small side street called “Bonsuccès” – God knows how this street ended up with such a French name!). Easily accessible by taxi – ours, coming from the railway station, first mumbled (they all do all the times, especially if they are of a certain vintage!) checked his book for direction, and then took us right to the door.
Quite unique! Very roomy – a bedroom and a living room, linked by a very modern kitchen in-between and a spacious bathroom adjoining the bedroom, with a large shower. Very stylishly appointed; flat TV screen, DVD, and a music player with iPod stand. Tiles – it looks like original ones – make for cold floors in the winter (good thing we brought our warm slippers – it was 6 degrees centigrade when we arrived in Barcelona, and as much as the apartment is equipped with 2 wall-mounted aircon-heating units, they were never strong enough to heat the place thoroughly, not until the third day of our stay anyway.)
You can’t be put off by the exteriors: the apartment is in a 18th century old building ; the stairs – there are 39 of them, hence the name of the place – are very narrow and meander to the second floor (1st floor as denominated in Europe where you only start counting after the réz-de-chaussée!). The entrance lobby and stairs are badly in need of renovation and of a good coat of paint, but we gathered the obstacle is getting a license to modernise the space on account that this is a very old building...
The whole concept is interesting. The apartment is managed (and owned presumably) by a few individuals based in Manchester, England who have started running places for rent based on the idea of a cross between boutique hotels and service apartments (borrowing the quaintness of the first and the functionality of the second I presume). The outfit is called “Staying Cool” and it is run by the individuals who started it – very personalised and responsive, judging by the email exchange I had with them when sorting out how to get the key mailed to us in Toronto in time for our stay... In their own words: “We set up Staying Cool in 2005 (we being 2 friends with a shared passion for style and design). We both worked away from home and thought there had to be a better alternative to a boutique hotel (great design but small rooms and a hefty bill) and a serviced apartment (cheaper and more spacious but badly and blandly furnished). So we came up with the concept of Staying Cool – the hip alternative to hotels”. By what I read, the apartment in Barcelona is the only property they have out of England, their major undertaking currently being in Birmingham where they took up refitting and running some fifteen apartments in one of this city’s landmark buildings.
We found this place through the travel site i-escape, (http://www.i-escape.com/hotel.php?hotel_key=BC014 ) an outfit based in London, which we use regularly to reference and book places where to stay when travelling or vacationing – in Kerala and Cochin in India, in Madrid, Sevilla and other places in Andalusia – we will always cherish the memories La Cazella near Ronda left us with – and now Barcelona. Never disappointed!
Carried on discovering so-called new Catalan cuisine at places run by chefs who claim inspiration from the “chef of all chefs”, Ferran Adrià, and his improbable restaurant elBulli, outside of Barcelona (set to create more waves; see recent article in Newsweek): Cinc Sentits, Sauc, Dos Cielos, etc. Tried also Neri Restaurante and Casa Calvet.
