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Sitges is a city that is always good to visit because it has everything: history, culture, gastronomy, fun and, most importantly, the friends who live there. So any excuse is good to take the boat and go spend the day with them.
Sitges is a town about 35 kilometres southwest of Barcelona, in Catalonia renowned worldwide for its film festival, Carnival. Located between the Garraf Massif and the Mediterranean Sea, it is known for its beaches, nightspots, and historical sites.
While the roots of Sitges' artistic reputation date back to the late 19th century, when painter Santiago Rusiñol took up residence there during the summer, the town became a centre for the 1960s counterculture during the Francoist regime, and became known as Ibiza in miniature.
Today, the economy of Sitges is based on tourism and culture. Almost 35% of the approximately 26,000 permanent inhabitants are from the Netherlands, the UK, France.
The name of the town is simply the Catalan word sitges, plural of sitja, meaning silos in English.
Human presence in the area dates to at least the Neolithic era, and an Iberian settlement from the 4th century. In the 1st century BC, it included two separated villages, later absorbed by the Romans.
During the Middle Ages, a castle was built in Sitges, owned by the bishopric of Barcelona, which later ceded it to count Mir Geribert (1041). In the 12th century, the town fell under the rule of the Sitges family. The latter held it until 1308, when Agnes of Sitges sold the town to Bernat de Fonollar, after whose death it went to the Pia Almoina, a charitable institution, to which it belonged until 1814.
Between the late-18th century and the early-20th, the history of Sitges was dominated by its close links with Cuba. Thousands of youngsters from Sitges settled in Santiago de Cuba, Guantánamo and other areas in Eastern Cuba. Most of them were employed in commerce, usually working for relatives already established in the island. Some of them thrived and created big firms, like Facundo Bacardí, founder of Ron Bacardí, and Jaime Brugal, who later moved to the Dominican Republic and established Ron Brugal. Some others, after having amassed a certain fortune, settled back in Sitges, generally living on rent or investing in sectores like wine or shoe making. These were known as Americanos, known for their habit of planting palm trees in their Caribbean-looking houses, smoking Cuban cigars and rum drinking. The americanos left a huge legacy in Sitges which can still be seen in its architecture and the history of most local families.
Shoe making shaped Sitges' economy during the first third of the 20th century. Sitges economy was mostly based on the production of wine until the late 19th century, when the first mechanized shoe factory was established in the town in 1874, starting a powerful shoe making sector which employed ca. 80% of local workers by the mid-20th century. The tourist boom of the 1960s ended the era of shoe making and made local economy essentially depending on tourism and services.
Due to the wave of artists settling in the town in the wake of Santiago Rusiñol, who established his studio (nowadays Museu del Cau Ferrat) wealthy families from Barcelona built summer residences in Sitges, especially in the garden city known as Terramar. Sitges acquired an international reputation and attracted celebrities. American businessman, art collector, and philanthropist Charles Deering held an important art collection in Sitges between 1910 and 1921, where he built the impressive Palau Maricel. Intellectuals like G. K. Chesterton, who visited the town in 1926 and 1935, or the German boxer Max Schmelling, who trained for his match against Paulino Uzcudun in Terramar Hotel in 1934.
The British war journalist Henry Buckley lived for a few months in Sitges during the conflict, marrying a local woman. He would eventually retire in the mid-1960s in the town, where he purchased a house and died in 1972.
The municipality of Sitges is located in the Garraf comarca. It is bordered to the north by the municipalities of Olivella and Begues, to the west by Sant Pere de Ribes and Vilanova i la Geltrú, to the east by Gavà and Castelldefels, and to the south by the Mediterranean Sea.
More information: Sitges
not only inspiring and stimulating,
it is also humbling.
The men and women who created antique treasures
for us to marvel at had to deal with plague, genocide,
a world without writing, iron tools, or penicillin
-and yet they made something extraordinary of their life and times.
Bettany Hughes
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