Would you like to stay in what is probably the oldest room in Barcelona? Well today it is possible to do so and sleep inside one of the old defense towers of the Roman wall. The Mercer Barcelona hotel, on Lledó street, has three rooms, one for each floor, that take advantage of the interior of the tower identified as number 28 and which is visible from Sots Tinent Navarro street, at the back of the hotel, after the demolition of some farms a few years ago.
The Mercer is a five-star hotel located in an old medieval mansion that was built attached to the old Roman wall. In addition to the tower, walls of the wall are also preserved in the dining room and in the cocktail bar, and part of the old walkway that connected the 76 towers of the fortification and where the library is currently located. The ground floor of the tower was converted into a meeting room.
But the Romans are not the only historical remains. The long history of this old mansion has also allowed the recovery of Romanesque and Renaissance frescoes, as well as Gothic elements. Walking through the different rooms of the hotel is to explore part of the history of Barcelona through its architecture.
The 76 towers of the Roman wall are a reinforcement of the original one built in the 3rd century. Barcino decided to undertake this important work in great haste because of some type of threat to the city. This explains why all types of materials from monuments were used for its construction, including for the filling and also for the walls themselves. Today, it is still possible to see in the parts of the recovered wall stones with peculiar shapes and inscriptions that were used from other constructions.
The rooms currently located in tower 28 were originally rooms for the defense of the city. At most a sentinel would have slept lying on its floor and walls. Today, these rooms are about 1,700 years old. Without a doubt, the deans of the entire city.
