Mr & Mrs Smith

Destination BCN

Barcelona, Spain

With its wow-inducing architecture, cycle-friendly streets, mouth-watering markets and thriving social scene Barcelona begs you to stay a little longer, settle in, and make yourself at home. And there’s no better place to do so than Destination BCN. Owned by the impossibly cool, irrepressibly stylish and totally down-to-earth Miklos and Anne, the pristinely designed apartments at Ronda Universitat 11 are elegant, warm, functional spaces that are soaked in Spanish sophistication. Ever fallen in love with an apartment in a design magazine and wished you could click your heels and just live that life for a while? With Destination BCN on the scene, nothing’s stopping you.

Need to know

• Rates information €140–€350 for two people, with an extra €20–€40 a night for each extra person; excludes cleaning (€50–€90) and eight per cent tax. There’s also a charge for late check-in.
• Ideal for Design aficionados, cool young things, architecture addicts, foodie families.
• Sleeps 5 of the nine apartments have two bedrooms and another 3 have sofa beds in the living room. All can sleep up to 4 people except Apartment Principal which has space for 6.
• Property style Mid-century modernism
• Grounds Capital of Catalunyan cool
• Minimum hire Four nights, seven nights during local festivities or public holidays.
• Children Cots for babies are €7 a night. Apartment Principal is the best option for families – it can sleep up to six, two on fold-out beds.
• Booking process Smith deposit taken when you book.
• Also Leave the pooch at home – pets are not allowed.

Floor plan

• Bedrooms

  Four apartments (Finn, Figi, Cañadilla, and Riva) have one bedroom, with sofa-beds in the living rooms; the others (Ghost, Walden, Paso Doble, Principal and Cadaques) have two. Principal also has two fold-away beds suitable for younger guests. The bedrooms themselves differ between apartments, but all have supremely comfortable Swissflex beds, covered with Egyptian cotton sheets and offering a choice of goose feather pillows or firmer, anti-allergy alternatives. Two bedrooms (one in Figi and one in Walden) have smart, modern four-posters and the bedrooms in Ghost, Principal and Cadaques have en-suite bathrooms too.

• Kitchen

  Apartment kitchens are fully kitted out with state-of-the-art appliances and the best of the basics, with fridge-freezers, microwave ovens, induction hobs, toasters, coffeemakers, juicers, and blenders. The cupboards are stocked with essentials such as coffee, tea, herbs, spices, oils and vinegars, too.

• Living room

  Lounge spaces differ from apartment to apartment, but all have flatscreen TVs hooked up to Sky, with DVD and CD players attached. Sofas and armchairs vary in colour and style and most of the unique features, such as coffee tables, lampshades and ornaments, have a design luminary’s name attached.

• Dining room

  All the apartments have Poliform dining tables to seat four – six in Prinicpal. Both Principal and Cadaques have dining areas in their open-air courtyards too.

• Private parking Destination BCN doesn’t provide parking, but there is a handful of public car parks not far away; Plaza Castilla in front of the building charges €22 a day.