Weather forecast Sitges

Sitges (including rainfall and temperature averages)

Once a small fishing village on the Costa Dorada, Sitges has become iconic. Poised between its reputation as the St Tropez of Spain and its position as the centre of Spanish counter-culture, the town has been a magnet for artists and writers for over a century. It was made fashionable in the late nineteenth century by Catalan painter Santiago Rusiñol, who took up residence there during the summer. He was followed by Ramon Casas, Miquel Utrillo and Charles Deering, who turned Sitges into a reference point for writers, musicians and other intellectuals and thus an important centre for the dissemination of Modernism. In the 1960s, the town was a focal point for cultural resistance against General Franco; rather than fostering armed rebellion, it was a place where permissive attitudes and avant-garde arts reigned supreme and was known as Ibiza in miniature. More recently, it has become the gay capital of northern Spain and the resort of choice for trendy Barcelonites, renowned as a party town where anything goes.

There are seventeen beautiful beaches in Sitges and all of them are fairly busy. Due to the warm climate, they are used from April to October and sometimes beyond. In summer temperatures reach 30°C and higher. The beaches become more relaxed the further east you get – the last two or three are nudist and the furthest from town, Playa del Muerto, is the gay beach. Passeig Maritim, the promenade, runs along them all, lined with friendly bars, cafes and restaurants. The nights go on forever, with a huge choice of music, ambience and themes.

Make the effort to climb the knoll above the town; it’s here that you reach the beautiful baroque parish church and streets of whitewashed mansions that were built by returning Americanos, native sons who had made their fortunes in America. Several have now been turned into museums. Museu Cau Ferrat was the home of Santiago Rusiñol and contains a number of his paintings as well as sculpture and odds and ends collected on his travels. Museu Romantic shows the life of a rich Catalan family in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and the Maricel Museum has a rich modern art collection.

Sitges is, of course, renowned for its world-famous annual film festival. It also hosts one of the best pre-Lenten Carnivals outside Venice, the highlights of which are the Debauchery Parade and the Extermination Parade, when outrageously dressed drag queens dance through the streets, as well as the many masked balls. The jazz festival and the Barcelona-Sitges Antique Car Race are also great fun.

As you might expect, Sitges is as idiosyncratic in its cuisine as in everything else. Xató is unique to the town, a dish consisting of escarole, cod, tuna, anchovies, aubergine and black olives, with a sauce made with scalded chillies, toasted almonds, garlic, olive oil, salt, vinegar and hot peppers. It is eaten with omelettes. Other classics of the region include fideua, a paella made with noodles; sepia stewed with potatoes and alioli; bull de tonyina, a sailor’s dish made with tuna; and peppers stuffed with cod. Bizarrely, the most typical dessert is made with pork scratchings!