Hello from Sitges
Sitges, Cafe Tiempo Loco, September 24, 2004, 7:20 pm
The beautiful church of Sitges
Sitting here in the cafe, 2 minutes from the Hostal Bonaire
(Euro 39 for a single room) where we are going to spend the
night.
We left Javea yesterday around 1 pm and drove up the A7. We
were just curious about the toll and ended up paying Euro
6.20 and Euro 17.75 plus another Euro 1.20 to exit just around
Tarragona.
We decided to explore the mountain areas and ended up in a
hostal in the small medieval town of Montblanc where a single
room cost only Euro 25.00 and a double room was Euro 42.00.
We walked around the town which is completely encircled by
walls and medieval watchtowers. Quite interesting, but very
small.
Having dinner was another thing, we were ready to eat by about
8 pm, but no chance, none of the restaurants would open before
9:00 pm so we ended up eating a bocadillo (sandwich) at a
bar on the main square.
This morning we had a nice little breakfast on the main square
at the same place. It was market day today and all sorts of
merchants were selling various types of merchandise from portable
stands. Our breakfast was lovely, tea plus 2 of the freshest
croissants we had ever tasted.
We then made our way through the mountains past Valls into
the area of Montserrat, which is an absolutely fascinating
area. We ended up spending the entire afternoon at the Monastery
of Montserrat, checked out the basilica, were astounded at
the various modes of transportation one could use to get up
to the monastery, ie. the road with Euro 4 for parking, a
pin and racket railroad and an aerial tram.
The mysterious jagged mountains of Montserrat.
Plus we took a funicular to the top of the mountain to Sant
Joan and walked around at the top of the serrated mountains.
What a gorgeous view! We also walked up to the right to a
little chapel (I guess the Chapel of Sant Joan). Right beside
it was an abandoned villa / restaurant that was glued against
the mountain. It pretty much lay in ruins and I wondered what
must have happened to this rather mysterious place...
The famous monastery of Montserrat.
After Montserrat we drove down to the coast and we decided
to spend our last night on the mainland in Sitges, a really
beautiful town about 50 km southwest of Barcelona, right on
the Mediterranean. We went to the tourist office to get our
accommodation information and then drove down to the beach
where we had to park quite far away from the downtown. Parking
is definitely an issue here.
We booked into the Hostal Bonaire right downtown, 2 single
rooms at Euro 39 each, not bad for a beautiful beach town.
Not fancy, but clean and with private baths. Now we are gonna
head out for dinner. After about 4 to 5 hours of walking today
we are pretty tired and hungry....
Tomorrow itīs off to
Ibiza where we are going to have a more relaxing week.
Useful booksfor travel to Catalonia:
Related articles:
Click here for
my travel report from Barcelona.
Click here for my travel
report from Tarragona.
Click here for my travel report
from Javea.
Click here for my travel report
from Ibiza (1)
Click here for my travel report
from Ibiza (2)
Click here for my travel report
from Ibiza (3)
Click here for my travel report
from Ibiza (4)
Click here for my
country travel guide on Spain.