Barcelona, Spain

Yurbban Ramblas

Price per night from$203.05

Price information

If you haven’t entered any dates, the rate shown is provided directly by the hotel and represents the cheapest double room (including tax) available in the next 60 days.

Prices have been converted from the hotel’s local currency (EUR186.83), via openexchangerates.org, using today’s exchange rate.

Style

Spruce city slicker

Setting

Top of Las Ramblas

Yurbban Ramblas occupies a prime spot at the top of Las Ramblas, right beside legendary lovers’ meeting place Font de Canaletes. The hotel’s traditional townhouse exterior belies the contemporary look inside, where compact bedrooms pop in bold monochrome. But not everything here is so black and white: photographs by local artists brighten the walls in public areas while potted plants add a splash of colour to the intimate rooftop terrace. Gather here for evening aperitifs against skyline views towards Barcelona Cathedral’s soaring gothic spires.

Smith Extra

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A free bottle of wine

Facilities

Photos Yurbban Ramblas facilities

Need to know

Rooms

43, including three junior suites.

Check–Out

Noon, but flexible until 2pm, subject to availability and additional charges. Earliest check-in is at 3pm.

Prices

Double rooms from £175.62 (€206), including tax at 10 per cent. Please note the hotel charges an additional local city tax of €4.13 per person per night on check-in.

More details

A buffet breakfast is available for €18.

Also

Not, as you may have suspected, an old Catalan term, the origins of the name Yurbban are rather more… English: it’s a conflation of the terms ‘young’ and ‘urban’. With an extra ‘b’ just for fun.

At the hotel

Rooftop terrace, free WiFi. In rooms: air conditioning, free bottled water, tea and coffee making facilities, minibar, smart TV rooms, bathrobes, slippers and exclusive toiletries.

Our favourite rooms

Black furniture and lamps contrast with panelled white walls in light-flooded rooms that open onto juliet balconies. Top pick for incurable people watchers is the Yurbban Ramblas Superior which, as the name suggests, offers a little more space as well as views onto Barcelona’s busiest pedestrian street.

Poolside

There may not be a pool at the hotel, but grab a drink at the rooftop honesty bar and admire the city views instead – post-siesta, of course.

Spa

You can make use of the Signature Spa at Yurbban Passage Hotel & Spa, where you’ll find a pool and steam room (reservation recommended). It’s a 10-minute walk away on Carrer de Trafalgar.

Packing tips

Bring binoculars for scanning the Barcelona skyline and its many spires from the rooftop terrace.

Children

Children aged up to two years old can stay free of charge.

Sustainability efforts

In a city as international as Barcelona, Yurbban Ramblas keeps it reassuringly local, sourcing its breakfast buffet from Spanish producers and providing local artists with a platform to showcase their work in public areas. Lights in the hotel are motion-controlled, showers are water-efficient, plastics are never single use and a percentage of the hotel’s revenue is allocated to support local community projects.

Food and Drink

Photos Yurbban Ramblas food and drink

Top Table

Perch outside for an unbeatable sunset spot.

Dress Code

Pops of colour to blend in with local creatives

Hotel restaurant

Open all day, Canaletes Cerveseria dishes up classic Catalan breakfasts, grilled goods and tasty tapas at yellow-tiled tables bordered with local artwork and handicrafts. 

Hotel bar

The art-adorned, contemporary Home bar is set in a library-style space under a skylight roof, which becomes the breakfast area each morning and features an honesty bar for all-hours tipples.

Last orders

The restaurant opens for all-day dining from 7.30am until 10.45pm.

Location

Photos Yurbban Ramblas location
Address
Yurbban Ramblas
La Rambla, 129
Barcelona
08002
Spain

Occupying a 19th-century Las Ramblas townhouse, Yurbban Ramblas is a hip urban hideaway that’s right at the heart of the Barcelona action, mere steps from bustling Plaça de Catalunya and the mediaeval Gothic Quarter.

Planes

Barcelona-El Prat Airport is around 30-40 minutes’ drive from the hotel depending on traffic. Cabs are readily available and frequent shuttle buses serve nearby Plaça de Catalunya.

Trains

A major hub for national rail services and local metro lines, Plaça de Catalunya station is located beneath the giant central square right by the hotel.

Automobiles

Those who wish to brave Barcelona’s chaotic driving conditions and expensive parking can hire a car at the airport. But the city’s excellent metro, bus and tram network mean you really won’t need one.

Worth getting out of bed for

Stepping straight out of Yurbban Ramblas’ cool, calm interior into the frenzied hubbub of Las Ramblas can be overwhelming to the uninitiated. Our advice: make straight for the Font de Canaletes opposite to fill your water bottle and get your bearings. This peculiar hybrid of ornate lamppost and drinking fountain goes unnoticed by many, except after FC Barcelona victories when carousing fans congregate around it in their hundreds. 

Suitably refreshed, head north to Plaça de Catalunya, Barcelona’s vast central square, and jumping off point for the likes of the Eixample barrio, with its colourful art nouveau architecture and smart boutiques. Zip straight to big hitters including the Sagrada Familia and Gaudí’s masterful Parc Güell via metro from the plaza (being sure to book tickets in advance – much more satisfying to sashay in like the King of Spain rather than melt like ice cream in the midday queues).

Leaving Las Ramblas and stepping into Carrer de Petritxol is like entering a portal to another world. And what a world it is. This impossibly narrow street is – if you’ll pardon the expression – chock-full of chocolate emporia, where cocoa-based goodies in just about every format imaginable make Willy Wonka look like a slouch by comparison. Head to the reassuringly old-school Granja Dulcinea, largely unchanged for nearly a century. Once a favourite haunt of Salvador Dalí it’s purported to boast the best churros and hot chocolate in town.

East of Las Ramblas, the labyrinthine lanes of the mediaeval Gothic Quarter are fab for getting lost in. Discover tranquil hidden courtyards along narrow, cobbled alleys and pause to marvel at the grand gothic melodrama of Barcelona Cathedral. With its elaborate central spire, secluded cloisters, fabulous gargoyles and 13 resident white geese, it more than holds its own against Barcelona’s other bucket-list basilica.

Wander Carrer d'Avinyó where an adolescent Picasso began his career in earnest at the (now long-gone) School of Fine Arts, then make for the museum dedicated to his work in neighbouring La Ribera. Comprised of five adjoining mediaeval palaces – a suitably ostentatious setting for such a collection – the Picasso Museum contains a mind-boggling 4,000+ pieces, including a very substantial hoard of sketches and paintings from Picasso’s formative years, plus masterpieces from his Cubist and Blue periods.

Local restaurants

Age-old disagreements about which ingredients are permitted in a traditional Spanish paella have cemented its position as one of the country’s most divisive dishes. It’s also one of the most hit and miss, so it’s worth pushing the boat out a little at 7 Portes. Here, in a smart dining room with exposed beams and checkerboard floors, you can continue the debate with your choice of several different but equally authentic takes on the dish.

Enigma by name, enigma by nature: the only way to discover what Albert Adrià’s concept restaurant is all about is to book a table and go. Details are deliberately thin on the ground, but you can expect an extensive tasting menu of weird and wonderful dishes including the likes of goat belly with pomegranate and pea teardrops with frozen caviar. Food is served in a series of highly stylised rooms, and not always necessarily on an actual plate…

Local cafés

Practically next door to the Picasso Museum, Pastelería Hofmann’s cakes and pastries are works of art in their own right. Grab a frothy hot chocolate and life-changing mascarpone-filled croissant and enjoy your sweet treats by the boating lake in nearby Parc de la Ciutadella before heading straight back for second helpings.

Its name a tongue-in-cheek nod to the Gothic Quarter’s many sacred churches and synagogues, Satan’s Coffee Corner serves up devilishly good specialty coffee alongside a range of pastries and light breakfasts.

Local bars

Perched atop the luxury Hotel Casa Fuster, a landmark Catalan art nouveau confection designed by Gaudí contemporary Lluís Domènech i Montaner, the Mirador Terrace is a prime spot for sundowners. Chug craft cocktails or make like the locals and sip vermouth rosso, accompanied by sweeping views down the tree-lined Passeig de Gràcia, as well as the ubiquitous Sagrada Familia and Tibidabo mountain.

A reassuring short two-minute stumble from Yurbban Ramblas, La Whiskeria serves up a bewildering array of primarily Scotch whiskies, with a few more from Ireland, North America and Japan thrown in for good measure. Order traditional whisky cocktails or have your mind blown by imaginative newbies including the Tropical Highlands, with lemon, mint and curacao, and the Penicillin, a medicinal mix of ginger, honey and fresh lemon.

Reviews

Photos Yurbban Ramblas reviews

Anonymous review

Every hotel featured is visited personally by members of our team, given the Smith seal of approval, and then anonymously reviewed. As soon as our reviewers have returned from this super-central boutique hotel on Las Ramblas and unpacked their Sagrada Familia keyring and Picasso Museum tote bag, a full account of their city break will be with you. In the meantime, to whet your wanderlust, here's a quick peek inside Yurbban Ramblas in Barcelona…

The discreet entrance to Yurbban Ramblas, a stately 19th-century townhouse just steps from the Plaça de Catalunya, provides few clues to what you might expect to find inside. The first-floor lobby sets the scene well, its sleek skylit seating area showcasing interior design chops that ensure this historic building’s relatively bijou spaces still pack a punch. That sense of space prevails throughout, with even the most compact rooms benefiting from doors that open onto widescreen juliet balconies overlooking the bustle of Las Ramblas or the somewhat less hectic inner courtyard.

The hotel keeps it admirably local. Design and architecture is by Barcelona studios  and walls are adorned with striking photographic prints that evoke the spirit of the city, taken (of course) by local artists. Snaps in the gallery are available to buy, meaning art lovers can even take a unique piece of Barcelona home with them.

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Price per night from $203.05