	Barcelona Tours 2008: Walking Tours, Bike Tours, Tourist Bus, Barcelona FC Stadium

Barcelona by Wheelchair

This report was sent in by Keith Oxley from the UK after his recent visit to Barcelona.

Keith very kindly wrote this report so that other people with wheelchairs who wanted to visit Barcelona could learn from his experience.

Barcelona By Wheelchair - By Keith Oxley

We found the city to be all that has been said about its beauty. We also found it to be very wheelchair friendly and had no problem getting about. Parking our hire car proved to be very easy with the multi-story car park just off La Rambla with disabled blue badge places on the ground floor and a very helpful assistant to help us.

Venturing out it was a pleasure to drive amidst what I found to be very courteous drivers. We travelled to the Monastery Monseratt where it was quite hard work pushing the wheelchair up the sometimes steep slopes, but at least it was smooth wheeling and worth the effort. We didn't venture on the Metro as only one line appears to have lifts from road level to station platform.

Toilets did not prove to be much of a problem as restaurants and bars generally had easy access toilets. The one exception we found was the Kentucky Fried Chicken place on La Rambla, where the toilets were down a steep flight of stairs.

A minor disappointment was that in Guell Park there was no wheelchair access to the plaza where Gaudi’s bench is. We had to content ourselves by looking down on it from the upper level. Guell Park itself is very wheelchair friendly although it requires a strong pusher to negotiate some of the steep slopes. Fortunately my brother and his wife had travelled up from their home near Granada to be with us for a few days and he did a lot of the pushing. Nevertheless I have lost about five kilos.

The one big problem we had was really nothing to do with Barcelona itself but more to do with the Hotel we were booked into. This was the new Torre Catalunya, where we knew the wheelchair accessible rooms were spacious. When we arrived they told us there was no room available although we had evidence of a confirmed booking of some months. They had already booked us into the Sants Hotel, just across the square where they considered that a standard size room could be converted to a wheelchair accessible room by just adding a few grab rails. It almost ruined our holiday.

Again, thanks for your fabulous web site and long may it prosper and be of benefit to tourists like us.

Yours sincerely

Keith, UK

Editor's note: Thanks very much Keith for this informative report. Remember we welcome your experiences so click on the Feedback link and tell us your story. Feedback