Assaults in Barcelona

My husband, Gary, and I took a 16-day trip to Spain, Portugal and the Canary Islands, Feb. 6-21, 2012, which included three nights in Barcelona prior to a cruise and three nights afterward. On the first day of our visit, we learned that an employee at our hotel on Barcelona’s Plaza Espanya, the B-Hotel (Gran Via de les Corts Catalanes; phone 93 552 95 00), had been accosted on the bus on her way to work.

That same afternoon, a Russian woman and her teenage daughter were in the hotel lobby, checking out, when two men grabbed the mother’s purse and ran.

During our cruise, a couple on the ship informed us that their elderly father was accosted by two men at Hotel Tryp Apolo, located in Barcelona’s theater district near La Rambla. One sprayed him with “something,” the other offered to “help” brush off the spray, then they pushed him into the rest room in the lobby and robbed him.

On our last day in Barcelona at the end of our trip, we saw a man running from our hotel carrying a backpack, with another man chasing him until the backpack was dropped. This was another incident involving being sprayed, distracted and robbed.

The people involved in two of these incidents informed us that the police told them they lacked sufficient personnel to look into these criminal acts (unless more than $400 was taken). Staff at the B-Hotel were as upset about these events as we were.

We had traveled to Barcelona twice before and enjoyed our time there. We hope travelers to this beautiful city will be vigilant in protecting themselves and their belongings.

CONSTANCE LERNER
Henderson, NV

ITN e-mailed a copy of the above letter to the B-Hotel (b-hotel@nnhotels) and received no reply.