In Barcelona’s Raval, Hotel Peninsular on Carrer Sant Pau still keeps a three-storey Andalusian-style courtyard inside an 18th-century former convent, a rare interior in the city centre.
For people in Barcelona, especially those moving between Sant Pau and La Rambla, it is one of the neighbourhood’s historic spaces that can still be seen from inside the hotel. It also shows how much the Raval has changed over time.
According to La Vanguardia, the courtyard has balconies on three levels and a fountain, with a style that recalls Andalusia rather than central Barcelona. The paper describes it as one of the city’s most unusual courtyards.
The same report says the building began life as an Augustinian convent. After Bourbon troops took Barcelona in 1714, the original Sant Agustí convent was badly damaged, and the religious order moved to the Carrer Sant Pau site. The convent stayed there until 1835, when it was secularised.
Before it became a hotel, the site was used as a restaurant. Prudenci Bros, a former chef to Queen Isabel II, ran it. In 1875, Italian entrepreneurs who had worked at the Fonda Oriente on La Rambla opened Hotel Peninsular, and the hotel later hosted visitors to the 1888 Universal Exhibition.
La Vanguardia also says much of the old convent structure was kept during later renovations, with the cloister turned into the courtyard seen today and the friars’ cells converted into guest rooms. The hotel has been in the same family since the 1960s, and the current owners are the third generation. For more Barcelona context, see our Community coverage and Sport coverage.
