We wanted to stay in a smaller beach town near Barcelona for a few days. Our nomad friends Georganna and Tom, had raved about the town of Sitges when we met with them in Turkiye last year. We had a hard time finding a decent Airbnb and it may have been caused by a Fantasy Film Festival going on this week. We looked around on Airbnb and found an incredible place in the town of Vilanova i la Geltru. The town has a long name because it was 2 towns (Vilanova and Geltru) that were merged many years ago and they never changed the name. It is 20 minutes away from the beach and the train station but after seeing the pictures we could not resist. It was built in the 1860’s and most of the walls have been painted with frescos. The paint is right on the plaster. The pictures are mostly of Greek type people and are surrounded by the 3D pillars and frames using the trompe l’oeil style. The rooms are all huge and we have 2 bedrooms with a wrap around balcony. This is the fanciest, most amazing, and weirdest place we have ever stayed. The owner says it was used as a bar/nightclub before they bought it 10 years ago. That still doesn’t make sense to me. It feels like an art museum in an old palace.
When I posted last week that we were heading to Vilanova, Georganna commented that the town is a “snore” and honestly it kind of is. I guess we like small towns that are a bit sleepy. We did not see the mass of tourists that you get in Barcelona and even in Sitges. It has a beach, it has a ramblas (main pedestrian street), and it has a few squares with tapas bars but they are all filled with locals- not tourists. It is the type of town filled with people in the cafes in the morning, tapas bars in the afternoon and into the late night. People are out and it seems like everyone knows everyone. It is very homey and we really enjoyed pretending to be Spanish locals and eating at the outside patios. It does have some beautiful buildings and sometimes is easy to feel like you are in 19th century Spain. To be honest, as much as we like our stay here, if we came back to this area, we would stay in Sitges, which just has more of a vibe.
Vilanova wasn’t entirely void of things to do. We were able to attend the Gastronomy festival that was being held at the old train museum. 2 things that I am really interested in- food and trains. It had several local restaurants serving a couple of different entrys around the old train roundtable. It was fun to try some creative takes on Spanish seafood while wandering around the old trains.
We did make it over to Sitges one day. It was only a 6 minute train right up the coast. I can see why so many people like this place. It was a beautiful town on the beach and was hopping. The many many alleys were filled with shopping and restaurants and people were everywhere. The Fantasy film festival was going on, but I think many of this town is always pretty popular. It is popular with the gay community and we heard it turns into a party zone at night with all the gay friendly night clubs. There were a lot of beaches with beach umbrellas and chairs. We thought of going back for a beach day but it is October and the water is starting to get chilly. We had fun strolling around the streets and had a nice lunch on a patio, even though we noticed that prices are a bit more than they are in Vilanova. We were happy to return to our snoozy town of Vilanova.
We also had to do a day trip to Barcelona. We have been in Barcelona a few times and have seen the sights so we didn’t really want to stay there. It is just filled with so many many people. It is one of the “poster childs” of overtourism and the Ramblas is currently being renovated to allow wider pedestrian paths. But we needed to go to see the Sagrada Familia. It is the Gothic cathedral designed by Gaudi that is now the tallest cathedral in the world. We have toured the inside on previous trips so we really just wanted to see the new towers that are finally completed. They were huge and it is even more impressive. While the towers are now complete…. the cathedral still is being worked on and there were a few cranes still messing up our pics. We still got some good photos. After taking our pics, we went towards the Ramblas for lunch and to walk through the market before we headed back to Vilanova on the train.
We are now going to do something we have never done before. Take a Repositioning Cruise. The cruise ships that hung out in the Med all summer are now heading to the Caribbean for the winter. We are going to take the Virgin Voyager ship Scarlet Lady from Barcelona to Miami. We are a bit apprehensive, because we aren’t sure we are going to like being on a boat for 14 days. We are also a bit embarrassed that we are going to be on a cruise ship that is so bad for the environment. We are not climate change deniers. But we are also very excited. We will have a few nomad friends onboard and I think we are going to have a lot of fun. I hope to be blogging about it but I am not sure about the wifi situation yet. Stay tuned!