Let me start by saying that Jesus is an epic host. He's simply great. He was very prompt with communication. He lives next door, and on one occasion he came down to talk to us directly. When we arrived he took our suitcases down, and back up whe we left. When we first arrived, he gave me a detailed explanation of the city, bus lines, and things to see. By the time we got there the COVID-19 shelter in place orders had been issued, and everything was closed. Thus, doing so was a moot point. Also, when he did, he sat waaay too close to me in a time of social distancing. But I don't hold that against him because I too sat very close to him. He was so gracious that when our flight out of Barcelona was canceled, he said there would be no problem staying longer at his place.
His apartment, on the other hand, is not as great. It is in a building on the top of a hill. It's the kind of building that instead of going up, it goes down. One enters at street level, and then goes downstairs to one's apartment. We were at the lowest level. There were simply too many steps to go in and out of the place. The images posted show one set of stairs one has to go down in order to reach the apartment's entrance. What it doesn't show is that there is another long set of steps to get from the entrance to the apartment itself.
The apartment was infested with ants. I brought this up with Jesus and he explained that the weather was to blame. Due to the temperature they were getting in. We've had the same problem at home, so it's true: ants do come into your home depending on the weather. Yet at our place we followed the ants' trail to the nest, killed them, and we haven't had them ever since, no matter the weather. Maybe this is hard to do given the way construction works there. I don't know, all I know is that we had to constantly clean the kitchen and bathroom to keep them at bay.
Another big problem were termites. Jesus called them moths, but I think they were termites. Maybe they call them moths in that area. Anyway, the termite dust in the bathroom was a disaster. Everyday there were piles of the stuff. This was very weird to me since the listing states that the apartment was remodeled in 2011.
Also, the apartment isn't as bright as the images show. Maybe it was because it was still winter while we were there. It was overcast and rainy all of the time. But if you pay attention at the pictures posted, the lights are on in all of them. As a photographer, I can tell you that the images has been altered, likely by overexposing them, to make the place look brighter than it was.
In addition, the pictures show access to a small patio. Well, we didn't have that access. The door was somehow blocked and Jesus said that it wouldn't open and left it at that. Not that we were going to go down more steps to reach it, but still. We did have access to the balcony, which was nice.
We came by car and were delighted that there was secure parking. On the other hand, the garage was a little over 2 blocks away and one had to walk on a steep hill to get to and from the garage. Not very convenient. Albeit, very safe! Fortunately, there is an escalator where one can change the direction it goes. This made it easier to get to the garage.
It's possible that this review is tainted by the fact that I injured my hip prior to my trip to Spain, and that injury made it much harder to climb so many steps. But even then it would have been a challenge since I have knee and feet issues; I would have appreciated a better description of all the stairs one has to climb to get to and out of the apartment. And since we traveled with a dog, we had to take him out at least twice daily. So we went up and down those steps more than we would have liked to.
Also, we were there at the time of shelter-in-place orders in Spain. Therefore, we spent all the time in the apartment. We attempted to go to the park next door, but it was closed and we couldn't get in. The same was true for all of Barcelona. The place may not be as bad to people used to stairs, or who have no problems with them, and who spend the whole day out and about visiting BCN. But for us, it was a less than ideal situation.