A purchase has been made!

by RudyMenTerry · Published 9th October 2016 · Updated 12th October 2016

Vilanova i Geltru Market

This morning we decided quite early that we would go to Vilanova i Geltru to the market there which our Tourist Information Office lady had told us was quite large. She was, of course, right. We walked up to the train station and bought a ticket for the 6 minute journey to Vilanova i Geltru. This is about the most expensive train trip we have done at €4.30 for just 6 minutes. Obviously, the train was on time, obviously it was clean, air conditioned and uncrowded. But all that goes without saying now! So, we made our way to Vilanova i Geltru having first taken a small coffee in the station, (Captain Clarke drank half of mine as I wasn’t brave enough after the last few days!). The coffee in the station is almost embarrasingly cheap – it was €2.30 for two coffees!

There are even underwear stalls in the indoor food market in Vilanova i Geltru

Vilanova i Geltru market is actually quite large. There are two elements to the market, an outside area which is a weekly market and an indoor market that is open daily. The indoor market is almost exclusively food, whilst the outdoor market is a mix of fruit and veg stalls, clothing, hardware and a variety of other stalls selling anything from bags to toys. I had just one purpose in mind – to find the elusive leather key ring pouch that I would use for coins. We walked around the entire market and made an interesting discovery – if you want pants, this is the place to come! It seemed that every other stall sold underwear. Ranging from very sexy lacy underwear for ladies to very unsexy large fat-hiding pants for the somewhat less attractive look, to men’s briefs, boxers and even thongs! However, this was not our reason for being in Vilanova i Geltru. We were on the hunt for my leather key ring pouch. Just as I was about to give up hope and conclude that they had stopped producing them in the last 30 years, I happened across one. Ok, it was a very slight bit bigger than I would like, but otherwise perfect. I approached the gentleman, (I strongly suspect he was from North Africa), and enquired as to the price – €2.00 – I almost felt obliged to make the purchase at that price! And so, finally, I had what I had been looking for. (Later, I actually happened upon another stall that was also selling them, but he wanted €4.00 – I told him he was way too expensive, (“esta demasiado caro”), and walked off in a marked manner!)

Vilanova i Geltru Station

Captain Clarke and I then returned to the very beautiful building that is the station at Vilanova i Geltru. Actually, on this note, I should point out that most stations are beautiful buildings in Spain. I know that we do have some in the UK such as St Pancras or Marylebone and even Edinburgh Waverley, but I don’t think one could describe Oxted station or Whyteleafe station as beautiful – functional, but hardly beautiful! I must say that during the course of this short holiday I have become a bit of a fan of railways – just not British ones. Our experience throughout has been nothing but a pleasure, but the service, punctuality, cleanliness and general presentation of both French and Spanish rail travel has been entirely different to anything one can experience in the UK.

Tarragona Station

On our return to Vilanova i Geltru station, Captain Clarke suggested that, just out of interest we look at where the trains through this station ended. We discovered that many go to Reus which is near the holiday resort of Salou quite a way to the south of Sitges. What we found particularly interesting was that a train from Vilanova i Geltru to Tarragona takes just 30 minutes on the Catalunya express. The reason this as interesting is that Vilanova i Geltru is a whole 6 minutes from Sitges, thus it would be entirely possible to reach Tarragona from Sitges in under an hour. We had looked up the travel time from Sitges to Tarragona earlier in the week as we had never been there, (although our furniture spent 12 weeks there once, but that is a different story!), and quite fancied seeing it. The journey time is, according to ‘trainline.eu’, about 3½ hours! Since there was a train departing in 10 minutes, we decided to go.

A street bin in Tarragona

Our journey to Tarragona was, as you would now expect, uneventful. It was a comfortable, clean, air conditioned and uncrowded train which, obviously, arrived on time! Having never been to Tarragona before, we weren’t entirely certain which way to go, but we decided to follow our instincts which turned out to be pretty accurate. Leaving Tarragona station, we happened across these bins in the street. Captain Clarke has taken great pleasure in taking the mickey out of my taking a photograph of a bin in the street but I thought it was worth pointing out. The difference between this bin and any bin that you see in England is that the bin is actually just the visible part on the surface. If you look carefully at the photo you can see that it sits on a large square of metal. That is the actual bin! When the ‘trabajeros’, (workers), come along to empty it, the whole cubic container that is below ground is lifted out and emptied. It is much better than the overflowing bins we have at home. Having taken this photo, Captain Clarke then thought it was hilarious to point out every bin that we passed and ask if I wanted a photo! Hmm, he will probably pay for that.

Steps in Tarragona

And so we wandered towards the centre of Tarragona. It transpires, (as I found to my cost), that Tarragona is primarily a city on top of a hill. It is difficult to describe here, but the hill up to the centre of the city is very steep indeed. The alternative is steps up the side of the walled part of the city, but they just appeared to go on forever! We eventually made it into the city and had a look around. It is a very pretty city with a ‘rambla’ running right through the centre. (A ‘rambla’ is actually a pedestrianised walkway that runs through the middle of the street with traffic running on each side. Tarragona’s ‘rambla’ is called ‘Rambla Nova’ – I think you can probably work out what that means.) At this point, we conclude that it was lunchtime. We decided to look out for a bar where we could have something to eat.

Lunch in Tarragona

Although I was now firmly on the tablets, I was still a little wary about eating too much, so I decided on a sandwich, (bocadillo), which I thought would be light but substantial enough to fill my pretty empty tummy. Captain Clarke chose sole, (not from Dover!), that was lightly grilled and served with chips and salad. I must say that both my sandwich and Captain Clarke’s sole was good, wholesome and just what we both wanted. It is great that you can walk into a bar and choose from a wide and varied menu that has something to suit everyone’s tastes and prices that are entirely reasonable and affordable. There were quite a selection of bars and restaurants in Tarragona and I would thoroughly recommend a visit there. The architecture is good, the people were warm and friendly and, apart from the huge hill that you have to climb to get into the city, it is a very nice place indeed.

A wild ‘Raticate’ on the table

Since Captain Clarke’s meal was somewhat larger than my sandwich, I decided that I would have a quick look around for any Pokémon. Imagine my surprise when one popped up right in front of me on Captain Clarke’s table mat! For those that are interested, (and I am sure there are not many of you), it is a wild ‘Raticate’. I caught it on the first attempt but the little blighter escaped and it took me two more attempts to get it. Captain Clarke was more successful and got it at the second attempt. I should point out, at this juncture, that neither Captain Clarke, nor I, are really that obsessed with Pokémon. Although it may sound that way, it is more that it is interesting to find where certain elements of the game have been placed, (the game is really designed to get people to go outside and look at something other than a computer all day – the ‘Pokéstops’ and ‘Pokégyms’ that form part of the game are all located in places of historical interest and players are encouraged to learn about them), it is also the technology that is interesting as the game uses a form of Virtual Reality to display the Pokémon to players. I thought this photo demonstrated this rather well!

Sitges Film Festival

Having enjoyed our lunch we returned to the station via the wall of the city and got a train back to Vilanova i Geltru where we changed onto a train that departed for Sitges just 8 minutes later. So much for ‘trainline.eu’! Upon returning to Sitges we retired to our hotel for a rest. What had started out in the morning as a quick nip to the market in Vilanova i Geltru, had turned into quite an excursion! For our final evening in Sitges we decided to wander out and see what was going on at the Film festival. Although horror and sci-fi movies are not our thing, we thought we should at least look at the ’49th International Sitges Film Festival’. We knew there had been a ‘zombie’ walk during the day, (which we had thankfully missed!), and we wanted to see what was happening in the evening. Not very much apart from a few people wandering among the thousands of people there with makeup and clothing to appear as zombies! Just on this small point of it being an ‘International Film Festival’, I am sure that is true, but for an ‘international’ event, not one sign was in another language, not even in Spanish, (Castellano), every sign and message was in Catalan!

Sitges Wine Festival

Passing over the hill past the church we came across the other event that was due to start this weekend – the wine festival. Much more our cup of tea, (or wine), this seemed infinitely more attractive than a bunch of zombies! We first had to work out how it worked. It transpired that you queued up for a ticket that entitled you to either 1 tasting, (€2), 2 tastings, (€4), or 3 tastings, (€7). You were then given a glass, (actually the glasses looked quite nice!), and then chose which wine grower to visit and sample your wine. This sounds perfect, and in many ways it was, the only issue was the size of the ‘ticket office’. There was just one queue for tickets and one person serving, (with an assistant who passed out the glasses). The issue here was that there were about 1,000 people queuing! We decided that, on balance, we would pass on a wine tasting and go and get a glass of wine elsewhere! This turned out to be another decision that was probably not our best during the holiday.

Hundreds of strange people dressed as zombies!

Now, don’t get me wrong. There was nothing wrong with our idea. We wandered into town and decided that, as it was our last night, we would go to the Chicken Shack. Since it was still relatively early, we decided on a small appetizer in Café Roy before we would make our way down to the Chicken Shack. All was going very well, we even managed a quick phone call to our Gorgeous friend, (who a. thought we were home and b. thought she had killed my, already dead, sunflowers – neither of which were true, but it was Saturday night and, although ‘S’ had suggested that since we left on a Saturday we would have arrived back on a Saturday, it may also be possible that a bacardi had been poured!). What we hadn’t accounted for was the ‘Zombie Parade’! Hundreds and hundreds of people dressed as zombies and parading down the street pretending to have risen from the dead, (frankly, I wish some of them had stayed dead!). Why is this particularly relevant? We couldn’t get out of the bar – by the time they had passed and the crowds had dispersed, the queue for the Chicken Shack was so long that we would have queued for hours to get a table, if at all! So, with a heavy heart, we decided to return to San Sebastian and get something to eat there. Nope! No chance there either. Sitges was so full of people, there was nowhere we could get a table. In the future I shall make a note to avoid this particular weekend. Sitges is still one of my favourite places in all the world, but this particular weekend you are definitely better off not being there! It is, after all, RudyMenTerry!

Sitges Day 8