Anybody have any further questions about Barcelona you can ask me since I know the area very well and am there now.
For hotels near Princesa Sofia (PS) there are many but Princesa Sofia is a bit of a trek outside of the city center. You can either search for a hotel on Av. Diagonal near the PS hotel but you will probably want to take a taxi getting back to your hotel and I am not sure if people are going to have similar problems as last year. The 24th is Feste a la Merce (actually 21st to 24th will be a big party in Barcelona) and 25th is Thursday and there will be a lot of people in the city center. I don’t know where the parties are going to be located so this might affect what you want to do, whether you will spend more time at the exhibitions, parties or both. If you do pick another hotel other than PS I recommend you try to pick something in an area that is easy to describe with no confusion on the taxi’s part. If you want to be closer to the city center then any hotel on Las Ramblas will do but it will cost a lot and might be tough to book anything now. Passeig de Gracia is a very nice shopping district and I believe there are nice hotels in that area. Another nice street is Gran Via des les Corts Catalanes. It is a nice street that is a touch more residential. The beach area called Barceloneta is nice and is less than a 10 minute walk from Las Ramblas. The L’Eixample area is also very safe, residential with bars and clubs sprinkled throughout and enough hotels there and a quick walk from Placa Catalunya. If there is one area I would say to avoid the area called Raval which is to the west of Las Ramblas and stretches to Av Paral.lel.
If people want me to pick out specific hotels I would say either google “Barcelona hotels” and try to cross reference it with some of the areas I picked out. I used http://www.google.ca for “barcelona hotels” and the listings A to G are all fine and I have heard of them. At this moment Royal Ramblas is available for 22nd to 28th for example but don’t wait too long and try to book everything in advance.
John