Sitges

About Sitges

Forty minutes by train from Barcelona, Sitges is the seaside escape the capital uses to breathe. Seventeen beaches spread between a whitewashed old town and a promenade crowned by the church of Sant Bartomeu, the silhouette on the rock that fronts every postcard. Sitges sheltered the Modernist painters in the late 19th century —Santiago Rusiñol turned the Cau Ferrat into studio and museum— and never lost that bohemian, cosmopolitan air. Today it is one of the Mediterranean's landmark LGBTQ+ destinations, its nightlife packed into the 'street of sin' and its calendar relentless: Carnival, one of Spain's most uninhibited, fills February with floats and feathers; in October, the Sitges Film Festival draws genre-cinema directors and fans from across the world. But Sitges rewards quiet pleasures too: a beer at La Fragata over the bay, the calmer coves towards the Garraf, the midday vermouth, or the xató trail —that escarole, cod and romesco salad that here is close to religion. It is pricey by local standards and packed in August, but off-peak —May, June, September— it offers the best of itself: mild weather, unhurried beaches and gentler prices. Take the R2 Sud train from Barcelona-Sants, leave the car at home and walk: Sitges is best measured on foot, between the sea and the bougainvillea.