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Come to know and enjoy our close Raval neighborhood!
El Raval is diversity, color and charming corners to discover! The Raval neighbourhood, in the Ciutat Vella district, is located right in the centre of Barcelona and is home to around 45 different nationalities, which shows just how diverse its cultural richness can be. Anyone wishing to visit it will discover exceptional corners that you won’t find anywhere else in the city. Do you dare to ravalear? Yes, you read that right, it has its own verb. Dare to discover the other side of the Raval! Let the adventure begin! The neighbourhood’s location has allowed it to undergo an overwhelming transformation, from its beginnings as Barcelona’s Chinatown, located near the…
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Romantic Barcelona – The Couples Staycation Guide
Turn Your Date Night Into A Date Minibreak Hideaway under super-soft linen, rekindle the romance on a warm evening stroll, picnic under the trees in a secret park, and eat and drink your way from cozy café to cava by candlelight in our Barcelona guide for couples. We’ve put together some of our favorite Barcelona spots, and romantic ideas to help you plan the perfect couples minibreak. A Room for Romance – The fairy tale interiors at Hotel Continental and Hotel Continental Palacete are easy to fall in love with. Refreshed and ready to welcome guests, the Balcony Ramblas Rooms at Hotel Continental are a couple’s favorite with a polished…
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Hotel Continental Shopping Guide in Barcelona
Where To Shop In Central Barcelona? With its year-round tourist-friendly climate, the beautiful parks, dreamy architecture and of course, the exceptional cuisine, everybody knows that Barcelona is a great holiday city. But does Barcelona have good shopping? Is there more to buy than an FC Barcelona shirt with your name on the back and a bottle of cava? The short answer is a definite yes. From fashion to food and from artisan jewellery to handcrafted leather, Barcelona is a shopping dream. In our Barcelona shopping mini guide we’re going to show you the best places to shop in central Barcelona. What Is The Main Shopping Area In Central Barcelona? If…
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Winter Weekend in Barcelona
Barcelona Getaway Guide From Gaudi and gothic to cava and culture, our winter weekend guide is designed for the perfect Barcelona getaway. We’ve chosen some of our favourite destinations that are perfect for first-time Barcelona visitors and capture the essence of the Catalan capital. Best of all, winter is Barcelona’s quiet season, so you can soak it all in, enjoy some great Barcelona getaway deals, and avoid the queues. DAY ONE Plaça de Catalunya and La Rambla Start your day the right way with the generous buffet spread at Hotel Continental. Whether you’re an early riser, or you prefer a longer lie in, the hotel’s delicious buffet is a 24-hour…
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Barcelona Safe City
Common sense, responsibility, and trust Today, allow me to be the first-person narrator. I need to share with you the enormous concern that we Barcelonans feel about the alarming news released by our “authorities” which, as is usual in all the media, are amplified, dramatized, and try to search at all costs for the most negative side of things. To make us feel fear and desolation. In line with this, a few days ago, my friend Paula Fernández Ochoa wrote a post on LinkedIn that reproduced my thoughts in an exemplary way, here I share it with you: #ICannotNorWantMoreOfThisGarbage ?Enough is enough? There is no right on public television to…
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SPARK – Ember’s Workshop
When it comes to Brasseries in Barcelona, the list can be overwhelming and misleading sometimes. To put an extra to this mess, honouring our #GastroThursdayByContinental we post today about the new ember restaurant in Barcelona: SPARK Located in La Dreta de l’Eixample (Right Eixample), the singular house called Casa Fabra in Diputació street between Girona and Bruc Str. has integrated the new newyork-loft style Restaurant SPARK at barely 10 min from Casa Batlló, Arc de Triomf and at two blocks from Passeig de Sant Joan. Inside the SPARK the first view is traditional architecture masked with sophisticated tendencies and elements such as the uncoated bricks, the exposed structural and functional…
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Feria de abril de Catalunya is back
Over the 60s and 70s it took place in Spain a major demographic shift. For workers in Andalusia, Catalonia became the land of opportunity. Even such was the number of immigrants installed that (exaggeration) Catalonia came to be considered “the ninth province” of Andalusia. It is for this reason that for 45 years it has been celebrated in Catalonia one of the most colorful and authentic fairs of Sevilla, La Feria de Abril. Until May 1, you are given the opportunity to unleash the flamenco in you in this 46th FERIA DE ABRIL DE CATALUNYA. And for the last 12 years, this 2017 edition is held at the Parc Forum in…
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Señorito: The Art of Andalusian Tapas in Barcelona
Step out the district of Raval, all the way left from our two Hotels Continental in Barcelona, we find Sant Antoni neighbourhood. This area is the legacy of the former Sant Antoni Marketplace –which still exists nowadays but renovated into an open air market like the Boqueria even larger and not so crowded. After the reopening of the market, the neighbourhood was awakening. Old bookstalls, cards and stamps booths and all sort of unusual products were conforming the local offer. Sant Antoni had so much to be delighted by back then. Even today, the mentioned legacy of such a market is the gastronomy in there. In a very short period of…
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The NBA in Barcelona
In a true American style, the NBA already has its spot in Barcelona. We recently spoke of The Garden of Messi, and how the rosary player created a single town within Barcelona to enjoy the best football with entertainment and cuisine. It is now up to the big North-American basketball league to inaugurate in Barcelona the NBA Café. It is a theme restaurant designed by Lázaro Rosa-Violán, a trained architect and innate designer with projects in hotels and restaurants worldwide. Among them, Rosa-Violán was the creator of the VIP area and VIP boxes at the San Mames stadium in Bilbao and was the interior designer of El Nacional in Barcelona.…
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The Messi’s Garden
Under the short name of “Bellavista del Jardín del Norte”, our worldwide football star has just opened a Restaurant in Barcelona, in Enric Granados 86-88 at barely 15min from our Continental Hotels. This is not a restaurant but a little town. The venue with a thousand square meters give much game. Bellavista del Jardín del Norte is an actual town with its own church, main square, grocery shop and other parochial typicalities. The FC Barcelona player along with his brothers and the culinary entrepreneurs Iglesias brothers as well have created this space -for most “The Messi’s Garden”- to bring to all the foodies their particular town to comeback within Barcelona.…
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It Rains Plans and More
We could actually say that in Barcelona it rains down 4 days in April. However, in one of those what seemed to be a sunny morning becomes a grey and overcast sky. Suddenly, instead of 4 drops, we are facing a tremendous downpour. Do not despair. We know you have been planning your trip for days and finally your getaway weekend and your plans have been boiled as the weatherman played a trick on you. Again, do not despair. In the following lines we are giving you some PLAN B to your scheduled visit to Park Güell, the wander down Las Ramblas to the Port… Still go have a drink!…
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Bar Bas Restaurant
Right between Hotel Continental Barcelona and Hotel Continental Palacete, Bar Bas has recently opened its doors to delight both locals and visitors palates. Located in La Rambla de Catalunya, 7, this brand new tapas restaurant offers an extensive menu combining Spanish most traditional and successful dishes with also Catalan seasonal cuisine, offered with a carefully selected wine list from diferent Spain designations of origin. Among their tapas specialties we stand out the homemade anchovies and the fresh anchovies with vinegar, which can be found in their ‘canned food’ (El Tapeo enlatado) menu section. From their Clásicos section (Classics), we highlight the croquettes, candied chicken and their Olivier Salad. The ‘Just…
