Barça Day 1...

We got to Barcelona on a Tuesday evening. We checked into our hotel, the Barceló Atenea Mar, then walked around on the beach and headed to a nearby mall. We absolutely loved this hotel! Despite the misleading pictures on their site, it's about a 5 minute walk from the beach (including crossing a highway overpass!). The Mar Diagonal Mall, a modern mall 10 minutes from the hotel by foot, made our lives a lot easier.
The map below, stolen from Google Maps, shows a red dot where our hotel was. The green dot shows La Sagrada Famíla and the blue the Barri Gòtic. We were a bit out of the central tourist zone, but this proved to be a good thing.
Since we have small kids and are beach bums, it made more sense for us to stay near the beach an wonder out into the city as needed. Luckily, the hotel is less than a block away from a city bus stop (as well as the tourist bus stop).

We spent the first full day at the beach. I can't say enough about Mar Bella beach. It's clean, safe, and convenient. The beaches we saw in Barcelona (there are 5 of them I think) have little beach bars that serve beer, simple eats (I think) and play electronica all day for the hip crowd. The only things we saw that may not sit well with some folks were a lot of topless women and a few younger folks discreetly getting in touch with their inner Rastafarian. Neither of these are a big deal with us. The panorama below shows both the Mar Bella and Mar Bella Nova beaches. As (almost) always, a few shots of the little ones...