We can highly recommend Mar's apartment to anyone who wants to enjoy Barcelona and experience some of the atmosphere of the local city environment not just the exciting and vibrant tourist hotspots. We entered the late 19th early 20th Century apartment building, which is primarily home to Barcelona residents not tourists, through an ornate original stone and wrought iron lobby, up a cool atmospheric staircase or slow old fashioned elevator with sliding metal doors. Then we entered the huge beautiful apartment which Mar has updated in a bright fresh modern style with all the 21st century technology requirements while keeping the ornate mouldings on the pleasingly high ceilings. We received a warm friendly welcome from Mar's lovely parents who showed us how everything works in the apartment. The A/C works fine to keep cool but we found if we kept the big windows open with the shutters closed we got used to the breeze and found the quiet background sounds of the area atmospheric and relaxing, even at night it is fine. The local ambience is enjoyable with a church and residential street at one end and an open courtyard surrounded by apartments at the other end. The Eixample area is on the way into the City from the airport, mostly laid out in a grid pattern with many restaurants and markets at the intersections of the blocks. Think Manhattan crossed with Central Rome. The apartment is a 1 minute walk to a metro station which will take you most places in the city but we found we could walk into the heart of the old city in around 30 mins. We found some great places to eat just by walking a little off the main roads the area around the church of Santa Maria del Mar near the Picasso Museum was our favourite area. We enjoyed chilling out in the large open space of the living area of the apartment just as much as we enjoyed the busy and exciting sounds of the City.