After 20 hours of traveling, we arrived at our 4 star, luxury, upscale, boutique hotel at 10:00am and THEY HAD OUR ROOM READY!!!! We could check in! No, stow your lugguge and come back in 6 hours! We stayed at the Murmuri Hotel on Rambla de Catalunya and it was AWESOME!!! We LOVED this hotel. Great customer service, nice upscale rooms with all the amenities, comfortable beds and pillows, English speaking TV, amazing bathrooms and for a bonus: a balcony! The area was very quiet and relaxing and in a really good section of Barcelona. Close to great shopping, restaurants and Gaudi buildings.
It was decorated in Silver leaf, velvet, silver beads, and purple in the lobby and restaurant.
The lounge was light blue, white and black. Loved it.
We had separate rooms behind this single door.
Our room
The girls room
We were very impressed with this hotel. Especially the Handsome Husband, who has stayed at many 5 star, luxury hotels. We couldn't believe this hotel wasn't 5 star and the cost of the rooms were so low. So we checked in and took a 3 hour nap.
Barcelona's streets are wide and on a grid pattern. Very easy to follow a map throughout. The streets had wide sidewalks on each side of the street and some of the bigger street had a sidewalk down the middle filled with sidewalk cafes. Every building was ornate and had wonderful balconies and architecture. A feast for the eyes! It was very hot, but a cool breeze blew down the streets and was refreshing.
The Casa Mila (La Pedrera) built by Antoni Gaudi was a 2 minute walk from our hotel, so we headed on over. Gaudi was Barcelona's premier architect. He built only in Barcelona and he created in the Modernism style. He designed everything in a building, from the overall structure to the most minute detail. I loved it. It is so different from anything you will ever see and it has it's own beauty.
This is the entrance to the Casa Mila. Every detail in the style of the structure. This building was built in 1906-1912. Just think how unusual it would have been then...and is now!
This is the courtyard when you go through the doors. Beautiful iron work, curved lines, mosaic painting and lots of light.
He designed alot of the furniture that would go in the apartments. Here, HH and I are sitting in one of his chairs. It was really comfortable.
We then headed to the roof, where these amazing chimneys and ventilation towers adorned the terrace. My girls immediately thought the chimneys looked a lot like "Dementors" from Harry Potter!
Me, Katie and Delaney on the terrace. All wearing orange, not planned but noticed.
We then took the metro and headed over to the Placa Espanya for the Font Magica show. This was a beautiful, impressive street. I saw the Tour de France go down this street one day. Fountains lined the street on both sides and then an impressive collection of fountains were in front of the museum. We grabbed a seat on the pedestrian bridge and waited for the show to begin.
It was a great show with music and lights. It started at 9pm and went til 11:30. You could come and go as you pleased, it was free and it was worth the metro ride to get there. This concluded our first day in Barcelona.
