Where you can you combine a love of film, of beach, and carnival in a single city? You might suggest Cannes, but I’m thinking farther south. How about Sitges in Spain? This little city a few miles south or southwest of Barcelona is known for all these things, including its night life as well as its history. The artistic reputation goes back to the late 19th Century, when Santiago Rusinol, a Catalan painter began living there. Much later, in the 1960s, it became known as “Ibiza in miniature,” and today, it’s known for tourism, specifically the more than four thousand five hundred hotels Sitges offers to its travelers, with more than half of these with four stars. It’s a city for companies and seminars, but also for alternative lifestyles, particularly in the last two months of summer. Nearly a third of the twenty-six thousand residents come from Scandinavia, the Netherlands, Great Britain, and France. The city also features seventeen different beaches.
Over the last couple of centuries there have been a number of interesting events in this destination spot: 1853 saw the first time the Festa Major was held, which is an annual festival on August 23 and 24. In 1923, the Spanish Grand Prix was held at the Sitges Terramar; in 1958, the city saw the first Barcelona-Sitges Antique Car Rally. In 1967, Sitges saw the start of the Fesetival de Cine de Sitges (which is now known as the International Film Festival of Catalonia); In 1995, the Barcelona-Sitges Veteran Motorbike Rally was begun; in 2000, we had the first broadcast of TV3, the Catalonian TV Station.
But, like New Orleans, perhaps the most interesting time to be in Sitges is coming up, in the months of February and March, depending on what time Lent falls in 2010. Each year, Sitges has celebrated without a break the Carnival (or Carnestoltes). The Carnival begins on Fat Thursday (as opposed to Fat Tuesday in other regions) — Dijous Gras — as the King Carnestoltes arrives. Once this figure appears until a sardine is buried (that’s right) on Ash Wednesday, Sitges comes alive. During this time there will be plenty of folk dances and traditional salads and two main parades, the Rua de la Disbauxa (which translates to the Debaurchery Parade) and the Rua de l’Extermini (the Extermination Parade). Usually, there’s more than two thousand people involved with about forty floats. It’s a perfect time to visit Sitges.