Oh my legs!
Note 23rd February – 23,737 steps. Ridiculous!
Now, you’ve heard people say, “Oh, my days”, well I have a new one, “Oh, my legs”. I awoke this morning with a little stiffness – I don’t think I can put it down entirely to the sights and sounds of the carnival opening ceremony last night. I think it may have something to do with the ridiculous amount of walking that Captain Clarke and I are doing on this holiday. You may recall (if you are not already asleep) that I have an ‘app’ which targets me with 10,000 steps per day. In my experience targets are there as aspirations and are rarely achieved. We have regularly exceeded this target (and no, I am not going to increase the target!) but yesterday we exceeded all that is reasonable. Yesterday we did (note I am not saying ‘achieved’) 23,737 steps! That’s 13.8km or 8.6 miles in old money. That is excessive! We are not designed to walk these distances, that’s what cars, trains and buses were invented for! I am going to have strong words with myself today to ensure that we don’t repeat this misdemeanor again!
A wet and damp Sitges today
Today is overcast and a little grey. According to my various weather apps it is currently 12 degrees and going to start raining in 1 minute. This may well serve to curtail our walking activity and lead us to take an alternative approach to today. Only time will tell. It turns out the app was right – it is now pouring with rain and Captain Clarke and I feel a little reluctant to step out for the 20 minute walk into town!
Eventually, despite the rain, we ventured out. The rain seemed lighter as we left the hotel but it didn’t last- by the time we arrived in the town it was harder and we were pretty wet! We decided not to muck around trying to find a bar or restaurant and returned straight to El Pescadito which seems to be becoming out restaurant of choice on this trip. Captain Clarke took the opportunity to survey the tapas on offer – he eventually selected ‘lentejas’ which is a real ‘winter warmer’ dish of lentils in a stew with vegetables (very few) and Spanish sausage. I settled for ‘croquetas’ (you can work that out) and ‘choricitos’ (small chorizo sausages fried in olive oil and local wine). It was, as everything in this restaurant has been, superb for both of us.
Captain Clarke returns having surveyed the tapas in El Pescadito
It is quite normal to pour red wine vinegar over your Lentejas and this is exactly what Captain Clarke did. Our waitress however (we must find out her name) explained that she doesn’t put vinegar on her lentejas, she puts ‘Guindilla’ on hers. This was a new word for us, so we asked her to explain what they are. It turns out (she brought one out for us to try) that they are pickled chillies and quite delicious too. We had to look it up but they are part of a family of foods known as ‘encurtido’ or, in English, pickles, which include lupin seeds (altramuces), baby gherkins (pepinillos)) to chillies (guindilla) and garlic (ajo). It transpires that you can buy them in England – just £39.95 a kilo! We won’t be, but I may grow some of the chilli variety and do them myself!
We rather resemble soaked rats!
One of the waiters at El Pescadito explained as we left that the rain would stop at about 2-3pm. Since it was already gone 2pm, we took that to mean nearer 3pm. We left the restaurant and walked into town for a while but the rain just kept on coming. Eventually we gave up and decided to walk back to our hotel to dry off for a bit. Despite the waiter’s assurances, the rain did not stop at 3pm and we rather resembled drowned rats! By the time we got back to the hotel we were soaked through!
A bleak outlook from Sitges seafront
On our walk back to the hotel we noted that there are now many more barriers out, all along the seafront in the main part of town and elsewhere in the town too. Although we know that there is the ‘traditional bed race tomorrow’ this doesn’t follow the route of the barriers. It appears, although we do not yet know, that there are lots of smaller parades that happen throughout the week and we suspect that maybe one of these takes place this evening. If it does, we’ll be there to see it! We took a look out to sea to see if the weather was looking like it would brighten up – we could hardly see anything! It is February so we shouldn’t complain, but the great thing about Spain is that the weather clears up as quickly as it comes down. It hasn’t stopped raining yet, but there is hope!
Shirts procured at Body & Soul
It stopped raining … eventually! So Captain Clarke and I headed into town. We had a short walk around, the temperature wasn’t that great, and decided we would try to find the illusive shirts for Captain Clarke. We went into a number of shops, none of whom had short sleeved shirts before I remembered a shop I had been in with ‘S’ when Gorgeous and her husband ‘S’ had endured a holiday in Sitges (with an apartment that was very close to the centre of town and sheer hell of music and noise all night right outside the door). The shop, Body and Soul, have previously offered a good range of shirts, both short sleeved and long sleeved. We went with a reasonable level of expectation. When we arrived there appeared to be no short sleeved shirts. Eventually I spotted a small rail with them. Captain Clarke went over to the rail and, as luck would have it, he found two shirts. He tried them on and they fit, so a purchase was made!
Enjoying dinner at the chicken shack!
We were now faced with the challenge of where to go for dinner. It isn’t that there is a lack of choice, more that it is Carnival weekend and the town was going to be very busy indeed. In the end we decided on the ‘Chicken Shack’. The Chicken Shack (real name La Oca) is a restaurant that specialises in spit roasted chicken and has been in Sitges ever since we first visited over 25 years ago. Actually, through listening to the restaurant ‘matriarch’ speaking to someone else last night, I discovered it has been there for 38 years! The chicken is the best spit roasted chicken I have ever tasted anywhere … consistently, and is exceedingly good value. The only down side of the chicken shack is that it is a bit of a machine, you are in, processed and out again in record time – 20 minutes in and out is not unusual! That said, despite it getting very busy, we managed to survive for 1 hour 10 minutes which is pretty much a record. The food was, as always, good and even the wine was drinkable.
His Majesty King Carnestoltes
It is wayward of me not to mention (and probably a hangable offence or something) that whilst walking around town looking for shirts for Captain Clarke we happened upon His Majesty King Carnestoltes. He had just finished another event and was walking through the street with his entourage. I took the opportunity to snap a photo of him. In all seriousness, the King and Queen of the Carnival have a gruelling schedule with virtually no letup. It must be exceedingly tiring for them.
After dinner we decided to go for a night cap at a bar in the centre of town (actually, the one we ended up in is called the ‘Central Bar’!) and see what was happening on carnival night. Now, there is now way that I can include all of the photos in this missive, so once again I have included a gallery below. Suffice to say that as they days go by, the outfits, the costumes and the behaviour gets more and more outrageous! Last night one notable performance was that of someone dressed as Mario (from the Super Mario video game) dancing with a Ninja Turtle and Batman. The dancing was amazing (he was obviously properly trained and danced for over an hour non-stop) but the sight of these three unlikely characters all dancing together was a sight to behold. Unfortunately, because they were so good, I couldn’t get near them to either photograph or video them!
Barriers out for the bed race today
After our nightcap we made our way back to the hotel. The barriers are all out and ready for the bed race today (Saturday) and the revellers were all out. It was considerably colder than in recent days on our walk back which I hope to be a good sign for the weather today! One final point to bring you up to date – I had forgotten about the noise element. Having retired at shortly after midnight, I was awoken at 03:50 to the sound of continuing music, drumming and noise coming from the town. I hadn’t realised the sound could travel that far. It did stop at about 04:00 but then two revellers (I assume) returned and noisily made their way to their room where they continued to make even more noise once inside! This was followed by a man who coughed for the next half an hour before I could finally get back to sleep. Then, at around 06:30 two hotel occupants decided to go out onto their balcony and have a very loud conversation … in German! When I finally returned to slumber, the person in the room above us decided to re-arrange the furniture. I had forgotten just how noisy the Spanish and Spain can be! Captain Clarke slept though it all. But he would. It is RudyMenTerry!
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