Moving to the Country, Gonna Eat a Lot In Sitges

First, a word about today's title. We wanted to write something that would help you to pronounce the name of the city we’re in (just as we did with ‘Reimes rhymes with France). If you’re not familiar with the song by The Presidents of the United States of America called ‘Peaches’, do yourself a favour and have a listen. And once we learned that the lyrics from Peaches were (maybe) referencing John Prine’s 1972 song “Spanish Pipedream,” well – our choice was made for us.

 So, now that you know that ‘Sitges’ rhymes with peaches, we can begin.

 On our way from Barcelona we dropped back past the airport and picked up our travelling companion for the next ten weeks: a Peugeot 208 hatchback.

 

We’re still working on names for her/him, but I can tell you it definitely won’t be prefaced by ‘Big’. Which is probably just as well, because parking spots in Spain tend to be on the small side. Like, pull your mirrors in before you park small. But, despite his diminutive size, Little Simba (? maybe? let’s try that name on for size) still managed to swallow our two sets of golf clubs, two knapsacks and a couple of  daypacks without complaint. Swallowing Al in the driver’s seat was a little more challenging, but nothing that a good neck specialist can’t fix later.

 Once inside the car, Little Simba’s pretty comfy, and although Spain’s bigger than Germany, we’re not talking about any Canada-sized distances here. The longest stretch we’re expecting to drive is from Valencia to Granada, which is about five hours – but we’re getting ahead of ourselves, because we’ve only just arrived in Sitges, just the first tiny leg of our journey. Sitges is only about 45 minutes southwest of Barcelona, close enough that one of our friends’ kids actually goes to the American School in Barcelona.

 Who might that friend be, I hear you asking. That would be Al’s friend AJ. Though people don’t call her that here (until we got here :-D), instead using her actual name of Alison, or Ali, or sometimes even Al. She’s married to Alistair, who goes by Al, which meant that when we arrived we had Al, Al and Al all in the car and for the rest of the week every time I heard someone say ‘Al’ my head would whip around only to realize they weren’t talking to me.

 Anyway as it happens, when we arrived Six Nations Rugby was on which meant almost immediately going to the pub, and on the way we were introduced to Otto the bartender and his famous Porn Star Martini. That’s Al and Al in the background there.

 

Things went sharply downhill from here

A couple of days after arrival, Al and Al went out and played golf with a couple of Al’s friends (Do you see how confusing this was) for the weekly ‘Silver Foxes vs Baldies’ match. No guesses on which team this Al slotted into. I’m sad to report that the Silver Foxes, despite being up by 4 holes early, gave them all back on the back 9, eventually losing the match on the 18^th green with a putt that went wide right.

 

This was not my reaction to missing that last putt.

Cau Ferrat Museum and Museu de Maricel 

While Al was off playing golf, Michelle took in some of the local art. Perched on the edge of the Mediterranean, is the Cau Ferrat Museum and Museu de Maricel within the home built in the late 19^th  century by a local artist, Santiago Rusiñol. The small house itself was quite amazing in itself and then you arrive on the second floor to find a huge, cathedral-like room filled with his collection of ‘stuff’ including about thirty wrought iron candelabras, just as many door knockers, and the list goes on. These days he’d be close to being labelled a hoarder. But apparently he preferred to be known as a collector. 

Montserrat

One of the magical things about modern cameras is that they can make even the plainest of days look downright spectacular. Weather here in Spain hasn’t been anything to write home about (although here we are, writing home about it). It’s been a mixture of sun and clouds (at best), or wind and rain (at worst). But, the worst day on holiday is still better than the best day at work, so there is no complaining here at all. We took a day trip up to Montserrat, which is a nearby mountain with a monastery clinging to the side of it. Mons Serratus in latin means ‘Saw Toothed Mountain’, and in Catalan Montsagrat means ‘Sacred Mountain’, which seems a nice confluence of language to have a Benedictine Monastery placed in these very unusually shaped pinnacles.

As well as the splendour that was the monastery and the nature, there’s also a 'modest' art gallery at Montserrat that is well worth a visit. Along with some local Spanish artists of both recent and ye olde variety, the gallery pulls out a few surprises such as a Pisarro or two, a couple of Picassos, and some Egyptian plunder I mean discoveries including a couple of mummies.

Pisarro

I love the level of expression achieved with just a palette knife

Picasso was FIFTEEN when he painted this.

So cool how the artist achieved a crowd scene using just blobs of paint. I felt like Cameron in Ferris Bueller.

Montserrat a hundred years ago looks alot like Montserrat today.

Sitges

Sitges is a seaside town surrounded by a low range of mountains, a lot of which is reserved as Garraf national park. with a look and feel that reminded us of the hills around LA.

 

View from our rooftop balcony. TBH we didn't go up there much because... March...

Not what the beach is like in summer, I'm assured!

E-bikes to the monastery, and a huge meal

With all the entrepreneurial people in Sitges (read as: people doing whatever they can in order to live in a Spanish beach town), it wasn’t surprising to hear someone had recently set up an e-bike store on the edge of the national park, where you can rent e-bike and then after the ride stop by for a coffee and snack in their cool café.

 AJ had arranged a day out with a group of friends on said e-bikes, followed by a long lunch in the hills. We didn’t have to be asked twice to join them.

 

Somewhat to the disappointment of at least one of Ali’s friends, these were the e-assist kind of e-bike, which means you still have to pedal (Ed: the other type of e-bike is… a motorbike). Those who had visions of effortlessly gliding up the hill, suddenly started to worry that this might actually require some exertion. But not to worry, as soon as we got on, we were immediately pushed forward with only minimal leg power required.

 The group quickly fell into two camps: those who set their bikes to ‘turbo’ and never changed them, and those that thought it might be a good idea to conserve battery in case we got half way up and we’re left with just leg power to get us up the last hills.

The best thing about an e-bike: It looks like you’re exercising, but you’re not.

So we headed off in search of some unsealed roads and a path through the forest. After about an hour we were suddenly out of the hills and on the edge of a small gathering of buildings, including a Buddhist monastery. Not exactly what we were expecting at the top of a hill in the Spanish countryside!

 

 

Liquid Courage for all that 'exercising'

Herbias liqueur (yerba), a bright yellow concoction infused with herbs. Not suprisingly, attributed to the monks in Ibiza. Descriptions ranged from ‘warming’ through to cough medicine, Al was not a fan and opted for limoncello.

 

Stage 2 of the afternoon was a long lunch in a former hunting lodge within the forest. After twice as many calçots as we could manage, grilled meat of all descriptions and a good dose of cava and vino tinto, we rolled out of there three hours later. A good Spanish lunch. 

Pa amb Tomaquet (See below for an explanation!) 

Wabbit! This meal may have been what inspired this blog's title

If you look carefully you can see the Med behind us.

Day trip to Tarragona

A short drive south of Sitges is a a town called Tarragona which it turns out was the capital of the ancient Roman area that now makes up about two thirds of Spain. It’s not just Roman ruins that are on display here because, like all of Spain this city has seen many different cultures and religions come and go.

 

On the way to Tarragona, we stumbled across another aqueduct. 

The Roman amphitheatre, built in the second century right next to the beach, saw its fair share of gladiators before the Visigoths arrived and started to dismantle the amphitheatre so they could use the stones to build a basilica. This was replaced by a convent and then a prison.

 

Next to the amphitheatre, we entered the remains of the ‘circus’ which was the site of Roman chariot races and we were… uninspired. But we kept going as the good tourists we are, hoping to find something of interest. Getting to the end of the visit we suddenly emerged at the top of a tower equivalent to about 8 stories and we were greeted with the most amazing view over the city, the surrounding mountains and the Mediterranean. The jumble of the city, and it’s two centuries of buildings were right there in front of us including the amazing cathedral standing out from the crowded mass of buildings.

 

 

A corridor of the circus running below the existing city streets

They estimate this would have been 15m high!

One view from the top of the tower. It was 360 degrees of spectacular

View to the cathedral from the tower

Another day, another thick city wall.

Wine Tasting in Priorat

We had planned to head directly from Sitges to Valencia, but after tasting some of the local wine we decided a visit to the local wine region to learn more about the local vino tinto was in order. The area around Barcelona and Sitges produce the majority of the world’s Cava and we can attest that they do a good job. A little further south, in the mountains inland from Tarragona can be found the Priorat (DOCQ) and Monsant (DOC) wine regions.

 

It was the monks who first started making wine here in the 12^th century. Just as well as no one else would be likely to look at these steep, dry hills and think ‘yep, this looks like a good place to grow, tend and harvest grapes’. And when we say steep we don’t mean a slight upward incline, we mean ‘I’m finding it hard to stay upright’.

 

Not a good representation of the steepness. But this will have to do.

According to Jaume, who led our wine tasting, it wasn’t until the 90’s that the wineries in Priorat actually started to produce wine that was, and we quote directly here, ‘even drinkable’. At that point they established a local wine school, started using more modern wine making methods (and possibly brought in some good marketers). And today it’s come full circle, as it’s the wines that use the traditional methods that fetch the highest prices. Though we enjoyed all of it.

 

There was a lot more to see in the area, but alas the sights and sounds of the Las Fallas festival in Valencia were calling.

 

Favourite food finds from Sitges.

 It would not be a Broom blog post without mention of food.

 Vichy water – the Catalonian version of this French mineral-laden sparkling water is quite addictive. Bottled from the thermal spring in Girona, north of Barcelona, which was once the site of Roman baths.

Pa amb Tomaquet, Tomato bread. Walk into any tapas bar in Catalonia and they will serve you their version of this bread. But it’s way more fun to do it yourself like we did at the hunting club lunch. At family lunches, Catalans will start a meal by serving toasted bread and a bowl with ripe tomatoes and fresh garlic. Rub the garlic clove on the toast, squeeze the tomato in your hand and spread it on the bread then drizzle with olive oil. Fun with food!

 Candnigo. Some of you may know this as corn salad, lambs lettuce or mache. This tasty green treat are the leaves of choice in salads here. Super tender and delicious.

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