Gravitating Towards the Beach Town of Sitges

We have quickly acclimated to the Spanish culture of eating lunch and dinner at typically later hours, than we are accustomed to in the US. Due to our late night last night, we didn’t start the day until after 1pm today. It was a cloudless, clear, and sunny day, so we decided to go down to the coast to spend the day at the seafront town of Sitges. Christian (the hotel concierge) recommended Sitges based on the short amount of time we had, since it is only a 40-minute train ride down from Barcelona. This would leave us enough time to spend the afternoon relaxing at the beach and exploring the lively town. For the first time this trip, we took the Renfre Train from the Passeig d’Gracia station. Although we hopped on the more indirect train due to some lost in translation issues, we transferred at Sants station and arrived at Sitges a little after 2pm. We followed the signs to the platjas (beaches) and quickly made our way down to the water.
Sitges is a lively, sandy (not rocky) beach town, and reminded me of the many Amalfi Coast beaches. The palm tree-lined promenade stretches along the perimeter of the nine beaches in town. Sant Bartomeu I Santa Tecia sits right at the edge of the water, along the promenade. Since it was already 2:30pm, we were starving and found a hotel restaurant, El Rincon de Pepe. At the waterfront restaurant, Boyd and I enjoyed a 2006 vino blanco from Penedes called Naia. I had steamed mussels as an appetizer and grilled local shrimp for my entrée. Boyd’s chicken stew in a puff pastry was just as ono. It was one of our best meals so far. After lunch, we headed down to the beach.
Like the Amalfi Coast, there were quite a few different companies that we could have rented an umbrella and chairs from, but we chose Jimmy’s. The weather and the water temperature were perfect. Ironically, Spain is the first European country out of all of the countries that I’ve been to so far, where I’ve seen so many topless-optional beaches. Although most women opted not to, I would say that about 10% took advantage of the freedom. Choosing to join the minority, I surprisingly didn’t feel as awkward or embarrassed as I thought I would. Maybe it was because I knew that I would never see those same people again, but I do think it’s so interesting in the US that as women we are taught to cover ourselves from a young age. It was a reminder that on some aspects, we are still cultures and worlds apart. We hung out there for a good four hours and caught the 7:30p train back to Passeig de Gracia.
Once we got back to the hotel, Andrea made us 10:30p dinner reservations at both Shoko (the waterfront Euro-Asian restaurant where we met Marco on our first night) and CDLC (another waterfront restaurant, specializing in Mediterranean cuisine, which also turns into a nightclub after dinner hours). Once we arrived at Barceloneta, we couldn’t easily find CDLC, so we decided on Shoko. Although Shoko has a great outdoor dining section, we were seated inside and the restaurant was packed. The interior is actually quite dark, with a modern black and red-colored Asian theme throughout. It reminded me of one of the hip, new restaurants that could be found in any of casino restaurants on the Vegas strip or in NYC for that matter. Our Euro-Asian selections of shrimp/vegetable tempura, Cantonese fried rice, sashimi moriwase, and chicken stirfry were all unexpectedly delicious. We debated on whether or not we wanted to stay, or find another venue to experience the Barcelona nightlife. We left and walked the waterfront, but chose to go back to the Eixample District stumbling upon the same bar that we went to on our first night. Kami, the Indian bartender who served us on Tuesday, was there again. He hooked us up with a couple of free drinks as we enjoyed the local Spanish specialties: cerveza and sangria. Boyd also tried the Cataluna Crema dessert (Spain’s version of the Crème Brulee). By the time we got back to the hotel before 3am, we had to rest up for our next day of exploration.

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