Hi Folks.

Renting a bike in Barcelona for an 8 day circuit of the Pyrenees and looking for a bit of advice on accomodation. We were planning on booking cheap hotel accomodation through Tripadvisor but having never been there before, I'm not sure if this is the best option. I noticed on "The Spanish Biker" website that some campsites have self-catering bungalos for rent. We usually camp but would prefer not to have to bring all the gear with us on the plane. Does anyone have experience of this sort of thing? We generally l prefer camping and as I have a bad leg, it is a good way of avoiding stairs!

Any advice most welcome...
Thanks in advance!

Chris

Chris,
Have you considered youth hostels?
I haven't stayed in YHs in Catalunya but elsewhere in Spain (and France) they were great. Membership isn't mandatory any more but it does provide discounts on nightly rates. Private rooms available.

I was going to post this recommendation for a camp-site bungalow on your other thread. Maybe it's further west than you've planned.
Not suggested as a budget option but it's a great location and the ~20km south from Bonansa on the A1605 through a gorge was great. There's a stunning olde worlde village on a hilltop a few kms further south too.

Many thanks for the info. I've managed to book several great looking places:
a static tent for one night near Saint Girons (30E)-Camping Audinac Les Bains, Saint-Girons, France - Booking.com, a bungalow near Fiscal, to be used as a base for 3 days (49E/night)-https://www.booking.com/hotel/es/cam...ail_hotel_name then from the Spanish Biker website a night here-Molí de Fòrnols before returning to Barcelona. Got two nights to book but going to leave them til after I've done further route research. For anyone looking for similar accomodation, I found that Booking.com was very usefull as it lists bungalows, static caravans, tents etc. It seems to offer very good prices and is in english with good search options (type of accomodation, distance from specified location, map locations etc)

This is the first time we've done a fly/hire trip and love the fact that we won't have to bring all our camping kit
...roll on July!

Thanks to everyone for your help with info!

All the best.


Chris

Chris:

I'm riding around in Southern Spain right now. I hotel it all the time, I never camp.

I use TripAdvisor to research what hotels are recommended in the area where I want to sleep (I never bother checking prior to about 5PM of the day I want to check in, and I never book ahead). TripAdvisor is very good for identifying inexpensive hotels - if you use their smartphone app (available for iPhone, Android, etc.), you can specify an upper price limit in the search criteria, and your search will then only return hotels, hostels, pensions, B+Bs, etc. below the price you specified. So, I thoroughly recommend you get that app and use it.

Having said all that: I can't remember ever paying more than €40 a night for good quality hotel accommodation in Spain, and on some occasions, I have found fully satisfactory (neat, perfectly clean, quiet, & secure) rooms for €20 or €30 a night. I usually aim for a 3 star hotel, but I have found some very nice 2 stars.

The above paragraph implies staying in RURAL locations - in other words, outside of cities of 100,000 population or more. My experience from many hundreds of nights on the road in Europe is that the best bet for clean, pleasant, inexpensive hotel accommodation will be a village of between 5,000 and 20,000 population.

TripAdvisor lists most hotels, but not all of them. Keep your eyes open for smaller properties that are primarily restaurants, but have perhaps 8 to 15 rooms upstairs. Those are the most pleasant and most inexpensive ones.

Finally, be aware that in this category of hotel, breakfast is usually not included in the price. No problem, because it rarely costs more than about €5 for a pretty substantial breakfast.

Hope this helps,

Michael (writing this from a very nice €30 a night hotel just outside of Barcelona)

The web booking sites are indeed useful but...
A friend of mine runs a small hotel and relates how *some* third-party bookers take a significant cut and are slow to pay.
For that reason I like to deal directly with the hotel, and often the 'direct' price is lower.

Often a hotel will still have rooms even when the booking site says otherwise. This is not a criticism of the booking site, but due to the hotel owner not listing all rooms on the site.