From our first moment of contact with Damien and Karolina at Picasso Suites 5.3, we had the most professional and attentive service. This suite is perfectly clean with tasteful and modern decor. Every day we congratulated ourselves (haha) on (blindly) choosing a place that was as well situated and well maintained.

The Neighborhood:
For us, the Eixample neighborhood is such a relief from the more touristy Gothic and Ramblas areas and a great place to experience how Barcelonans go about their days. It's like the elbow in Barcelona -- you can walk or bike in every direction and to every neighborhood in the city, including just a 10 minute walk to La Sagrada Familia, and experience some of the best architecture, shopping and Barcelona lifestyle just by stepping out the front door. Also, some excellent tapas to be had in that neighborhood, where locals are served huge portions of very authentic dishes. We also loved the daily breakfast in the cafe each morning. where Laura made us con leches and the typical Spanish breakfast sandwich. We loved the jamon and cheese one best.

The Suite and host:
A couple of things we especially loved about the Picasso Suite 5.3 were the access to the roof top deck and the very genuine helpfulness of Karolina. She planned a day trip up the Costa Brava for us that was one of our most memorable days and gave us great recommendations for restaurants in less-travelled neighborhoods like El Raval near the university. When we had difficulty understanding how to pick up our online ticket for La Sagrada, in about two seconds she was walking me over to the ticket broker. We also found letting Karolina book our taxi to and from the airport provided reasonably-priced, smooth transitions at the beginning and end of our trip.

All in all, a really great experience in a really great location with a really great host. My only suggestion for light sleepers is to bring your earplugs, because Barcelona is noisy everywhere, and enjoy a very good bed and a very nice suite at Picasso 5.3. Other suggestions include getting a bike to explore the huge bike network around Barcelona. We used a company called Green Bikes. The bikes were great 3-speed cruisers, so we were able to go all the way up to Park Geuil and travel for kilometres along the amazing beach boardwalk. Green Bikes was totally relaxed and the employees all speak English very well. Like everyone else, we just parked the bikes on the street at night, using the locks provided. The city-wide bike share program seems to be more geared toward locals. Green Bike was 10 euros a day.