Bellvei de Penedes

We’d been told that the Sitges children’s carnival would take place in the afternoon, so we pottered around in the morning and had lunch in the van before walking into town. It was a beautiful sunny day, but at this time of year it gets rather chilly in the evening, so we packed our woolies in our backpacks and set off into town.

We saw the crowds down one of the side streets, so made our way along to find the children’s carnival in full flow, with all the kiddies dressed up in their outfits parading along with floats. It was an orderly kind of chaos, with the route lined 4-5 people deep and others standing on walls to get a better view. One of the things they do is throw confetti everywhere, and the littl’uns took great delight in showering spectators and each other with the stuff.

Once the kiddies’ parade had finished we went for a wander. It’s quite a big seaside town, and the place was heaving. It was fun to see that many of the crowd had dressed up in some costume or other, as though carnival day were a giant fancy dress party.

We found our way to the seafront and were fortunate enough to find a bar with a couple of seats outside. They would only let people sit there if eating, so we had to have a mini second lunch to have a couple of drinks and watch the world go by.

After a walk along the seafront and through the town, it was time for dinner before getting our spot on the route for the main carnival, which we were told would start at 7:30. Unfortunately with this being Spain, the restaurants had all stopped serving until later in the evening, but we’d seen a mobile burrito bar on the seafront and so we had our dinner there.

We found a spot on the railings, wrapped up in our woolies and waited… and waited. The procession didn’t start until after 8pm, and it was a good half hour before it reached us. The costumes and floats were excellent, and a lot of work had obviously gone into it all. The dancers were good fun as well. The Wickford Carnival will have to go some to match this!

There must have been a good 50 floats, but by about 10pm, with the carnival still in full flow, we needed a good sit down so retired to one of the bars for a well deserved drink before the half-hour walk back, getting to the van at about midnight (hence no blog update last night!).

Here are some pics of the evening’s entertainment:

Tonight we’re on an aire about 20km from Sitges. It’s not a free one, but it’s a nice place and is good value at €11 for the night with electricity included. Carol’s been spending the afternoon reading, and I went for a ride on my bike for an hour. We’ve decided to slow down now and take our time getting to Valencia. Tomorrow we’ll be looking to find another aire, preferably near the coast.

Mike