Due to the BA IT failure, we woke on the day of our departure from Barcelona to a message saying do not travel to the airport. We held off booking any hotel until we’d heard from BA, but at 7pm and no sign of a phone call we decided to book the Hilton Barcelona as the hotel we had been staying at was full, we thought the Hilton was slightly closer to the airport (although it turns out it isn’t really) and we knew we, as Diamond members, would get breakfast included for our stay.

The Hilton Barcelona is in the Les Corts de Sarrià district, an area I have haven’t spent much time in at all, but it is a wonderfully relaxed and quiet part of town. It seems like a totally different city, compared to the hustle and bustle of Plaça de Catalunya.

Despite arriving only an hour or so after having booked the room, we were impressed to see that reception staff were not phased at all, were expecting us and the sofa bed had already been prepared. We had a room on quite a high floor, but the view was less than spectacular, mostly overlooking residential apartments. As the room was a suite, it was an excellent size and the lounge (where the sofa bed had been made up) still had chairs and an excellent sized desk. I was bemused (and frustrated) to see that the bedroom had an interconnecting door, but given the nature of our late arrival didn’t feel we should ask to move rooms. Indeed, the following morning I could still hear the guests next door talking, but it was not too bad and they left quite early.

In the local area, you do not get the wide range of eating options that you do centrally, but we found a lovely pizza restaurant for dinner and Concordia Square is a lovely traffic free area to relax and have some drinks.

Having finally received a call from BA at 11pm and managed to secure tickets to get us home, we now knew we didn’t have to rush to the airport for an early morning flight, so we were able to enjoy breakfast. Unfortunately, this was not the Hilton breakfast I was hoping for. I have stayed at some Hilton’s with a truly incredible spread. This is not one of those. There was an adequate choice and the kitchen were happy to make me an omelette, which was fine, but the lack of selection was very surprising. Had we paid for breakfast I would probably have mentioned how unimpressed I was at checkout. I was also disappointed to discover that the Executive Lounge was closed.

This hotel is very comfortable, but also very corporate. You don’t really get the true sense you are in Barcelona here and there are other neighbourhoods of Barcelona that I would like to stay in next time we are back.