Staying close to the beach in Barcelona: Amistat Beach Hostel

Before going to Barcelona, I spent a lot of time looking up things to do,water sports I could try, tours I could take and places I could live at. Post-TBEX, I was only going to spend two nights in the city, and I was able to get a room at the Hotel Silken Diagonal for a night, thanks to TBEX. Now, for a long long time, I had been wanting to visit a beach, and live close to it. So, while searching for a place to stay for the one other night, I had (obviously) one important criteria in mind: staying close to the beach!

After going through a lot of reviews and booking sites, I realized that the hotels closest to the beach were mostly the luxury ones. What about other affordable accommodations? I then came across HostelsClub, and saw they offered several filtering criteria while looking for accommodations, which included the type of place you were looking for, the area you wanted to live in, the type of room, etc. So, I entered all my preferences, including breakfast(we know how important THAT is!),Wifi and locations close to the beach.

And then, I found the perfect match! Located 400 metres away from the Playa de la Mar Bella (Mar Bella Beach), near a metro station, offering internet access,breakfast,beach activities and a tonne of other awesome things, I had found Amistat Beach Hostel!

I was super excited and contacted HostelsClub regarding it. From what I had seen, Amistat offered rooms for 4 to 12 people. But, they had a few private rooms too, which could be booked on request.

The free morning beach activities they organized from Thursday to Saturday,including beach volley and beach football, along-with the partnerships they had with the free walking tours,cooking classes,etc were all adding to my excitement.And I was very much looking forward to my trip.

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So,finally, about a month later, I had reached Spain, attended TBEX at Lloret De Mar, scuba-dived(details coming soon) and then arrived in Barcelona. However, on reaching the city, I had the misfortune of being pickpocketed in a metro, and as a result, spent quite a few hours making calls and filing complaints at the police station- all this while moving around with my luggage. At night, I decided to call up Amistat and let them know of my delay. I was a little scared thinking that I might not be able to enter the hostel if it got too late, especially since a few places I had stayed at earlier (particularly one in Florence) had made it clear that checking in after 10 pm would not be allowed. To my relief, they told me that the reception is open 24 hours and there would not be any problem at all!

By the time I reached the hostel, it was very late. But, I was greeted by someone at the reception, who was aware of my problem and cause of delay. Pali was super-friendly and gave me the necessary information about my room,breakfast and common area.

He was also kind enough to not take a deposit from me, as a consideration for my problem. The common space, funky design and all the colours around uplifted my mood, and I was thrilled to know that I was to be the first person to stay in their absolute new room- The Coral Suite!

When I walked into the Coral room and took the flight of stairs to go up, I was just so surprised to see the decor and the way the room had been set! Had they mentioned anywhere that the private rooms would resemble those of a luxury hostel?

The room had a flat-screen TV on the wall,lovely decor, comfortable beds and also disco lights that you could operate with a remote! However, I was so tired, that after treating myself to a hot shower, I jumped into bed to have a good sleep.

The next morning, I went to the kitchen area to get some breakfast. There was a nice spread of cereal,toast,croissants,coffee/tea etc and was good to meet other people staying there too. As I mentioned earlier, the common seating area was very impressive and was soon filled with lots of people.

Owing to the location of the hostel, it is very easy to just go walking(or jogging) at the beach and I saw a whole lot of people getting back from their beach sport activities, by the time I finished my breakfast.  Also, remember I mentioned about the free walking tour earlier? Well, ‘New Sandeman’s Europe’ free tours begin at 11 am daily in the city. But, if you are staying at Amistat, you could take the shuttle directly from the hostel at 10:15 am, and reach the meeting point of the tour. This, I thought, was very convenient.

You could also leave your luggage at the hostel after checking out, if you would like to move around freely and pick it up later. Besides, they also offered shuttles to/from the airport at additional costs.

Overall, I had a very pleasant stay at Amistat. The hostel is located close to a metro station, a beach, restaurants and offers plenty of services. I was surprised to see a DJ corner, a Wii/video game corner, and thought that the laundry services and the TV as well as computers in the common room were good additions. I would certainly recommend staying here, if you are travelling with friends, or even if it is just the two of you looking for a reasonable place near a beach.

The prices of the rooms vary as per demand, but can be checked online for the preferred dates. Roughly, a shared room(4 to 12 beds) would cost around 20 Euros per person, and the private rooms could cost about 90-100 Euros in total  for two people. I thank HostelsClub and Amistat Beach Hostel for their kind co-operation and for having me as a guest for a night. All opinions expressed are strictly personal .

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