Barcelona Notebook #2: Return to Sitges

(c) 1997 and my favorite from that trip

It was a deliberate act of reiteration, returning to Barcelona at the end of May. In 1998 when Markus and I traveled with one-year-old Simon, we flew from Detroit to Barcelona. It was Simon's second flight to Europe, having attended the funeral of his great grandmother Bichler in Leonding (outside Linz, Austria) when he was five months old. Our destination was Sitges (rhymes, appropriately, with "beaches") on the coast about 30 minutes southwest of Barcelona. We'd been unable to get a room for the first night in the Meliá Sitges hotel, where Markus had a conference to attend, so we booked into a place we found in a travel guide. As I recall it, our trip was essentially pre-internet. I'm willing to bet Markus didn't even schlepp along a computer.

This time around, in 2015, we had a repeat of the first-night scenario. I looked for an Airbnb* apartment for Markus, Miriam and me in the Gràcia district of Barcelona to be near the location of my writing workshop at Jiwar. We made the decision to travel just four weeks to our arrival, and I had to work fast to figure out the Airbnb process as a first-timer. The more I looked, the less I found. Finally, an apartment was available for all but the first night. It was around the corner from Sagrada Famìlia, which would be 15-30 minutes from my workshop, but it would be beds and a shower. Meanwhile, hotel rooms for our arrival night on May 30th were vanishing with prices pushing 500 Euros a room. Why? It turns out there were a couple of festivals, but the big event was the final game in the Copa del Rey: Barcelona vs. Bilbao. Spain's premier soccer final, played in Barcelona. No wonder.

Casa Mallagrena B&B in the mountains outside Sitges, 2015

There's some symmetry, then, to the fact that we booked a room just outside Sitges for one night at Casa Mallarenga, a mountainside bed and breakfast run by two Scots. Hosts Caroline and Peter offer pleasant accommodations and a tasty breakfast that includes two national specialties: pan Catalan (toasted bread smeared with a soft tomato and seasoned with olive oil, salt and pepper) and orange marmalade (homemade) on croissants and toast.

The B&B is decorated with posters depicting the Hebrides, plus Harris Tweed pillows on the sofas. We got some ideas about places to visit along the Scottish coast, and I'm pleased to say it was a Scotsman who turned me on to the salty pleasure of pan Catalan for breakfast. It does go with coffee!

Markus on the steps of the seaside church in Sitges, 2015

The evening before, after settling in to the B&B, we drove down to Sitges to wander around and find dinner. It's a Mediterranean coastal town of 28,000, known for its gay friendliness although equally enjoyed by all kinds of people. Markus, Simon, and I spent about four days there in 1998. While Markus was at the conference, Simon and I rested and played on the beach. In the evenings, Markus joined us for walking around and more beach time.

In this picture, Markus is holding a small photo album that I made of our 1998 trip to take along. We compared features in the photos with the places we found. Did we remember this place? Was that where we had the picnic? Is that the swingset Simon played on? Seventeen years is a lot of time. I found my basic memories were correct: the conference hotel was somewhere up there, behind the church (true). That must be the beach we went down to (true). But did I remember being there, in that coastal town, with Simon? Only the pictures, really, I remember the pictures from studying them. But the feeling of Simon on my lap, nursing, running in the waves... Memory is an elusive modality.

Akelarre Taverna in Sitges, 2015

Our night wandering in Sitges took us to a tavern where we settled in to watch the Barcelona vs. Bilbao game on television. We took a liking to pinxos (yummy things on a slice of baguette, self-serve from the bar, and you pay by the number of skewers on your plate at the end). We learned to call cervesa by its Catalan name, caña. Barcelona won, of course. They're winning everything this year. The folks in the tavern paid mild attention to the game.

A few more photos from 2015 and 1998 in Sitges.

Mediterranean boys, 1998

Seaside picnic, 1998

Evening strollers, 2015

*Airbnb, for those who haven't tried it yet, is an international network of bed and breakfast type accommodations hosted by regular folks (more or less). You book via a website, on which you have to build a profile and prove your identity to be taken as a safe renter. Now that I've done it once, I feel comfortable about trying it again.