Sitges is roughly a 40-minute car ride south-west from Barcelona. It’s a seaside town that a few friends have mentioned to us over the years for its relaxed lifestyle, good beaches, and fun Pride celebrations. Fortunately, the five days of Sitges Pride coincided with Simon’s birthday, giving us a great excuse to celebrate.
Trains go from Barcelona to Sitges fairly regularly and cost only about €4 each. Also our hotel wasn’t that far from the train station so I was fully prepared to take the train. Simon and Julian, however, had a lot more luggage than us and Glen was much keener on making things as easy as possible. So we decided to take a taxi.
Fortunately, a large taxi arrived just outside our hotel as we were about to go in search of one. Originally, we asked him to take us to the train station but then he asked where we were going and when we said Sitges, he said it would only cost €80. The boys leapt at this so I “reluctantly” acquiesced and we travelled in air-conditioned comfort to Sitges. We were all so comfortable that Julian fell asleep.
Sitges was bright, sunny, and just about everything we wanted in a “relaxing” holiday. The taxi dropped us off near our accommodation and we walked the final 50 metres to our apartment. It was in the best location; close to the beach, close to the bars, close to the Pride party. It also had two rooms, two bathrooms and a large living area and kitchen. Score!
We dropped off our stuff and went for a walk. We shopped along the way, buying more clothes to round out our costumes for the five nights of Pride parties we’d booked VIP tickets for. We also collected our tickets and wrist bands. We also bumped into a friend of ours from Toronto, Adam, who was there celebrating his friend, Phil’s, 40th birthday as well. They were in a group of ten and had already had a few days of partying by the time we showed up.
We weren’t quite sure what to expect from Sitges Pride but had splurged on the 5-day VIP package which got us entry into each night’s main party, drink tokens, VIP access, and a couple of other freebies. Each night had a theme, which, being the highly compliant gays we are, we adhered to, so the first night was pink, another night was neon, another was white, and there was glittery and sailor. Turns out only about five other gays bothered to take note or join in on this so as we rocked up in our “uniforms” it made us stand out quite a bit.
Each night there was a party by the beach with a big stage and drink stalls and performances. This included mimed and live sung drag acts, tribute bands (Backstreet Boys, Abba, Black-eyed Peas), and other performances. With the VIP tickets we had a marked off area on the side and directly in front of the stage, with our own bar and enough staff that we didn’t have to wait long for drinks. Oh, the drinks turned out to be half a glass of alcoholic and half a glass of mixer. We didn’t need many.
Though some others didn’t think the VIP package was worth it, we found it really was. It gave us a destination to go to each night, without having to bar/club hop. It gave us space. It gave us ready access to drinks. It gave us alcohol. And best of all it gave us a regular group of people to meet each night, forming a little bonded group throughout. We met Martin, a retired copper from England who now lives in the south of France, Ashley and Craig from Manchester, various dancers, singers and actors from the West End, a group of guys from Dallas, and a few of the performances, including an Australian drag queen who works in London.
I enjoyed most of the nights. We saw half of the Thursday performance, not enjoying the start, and then went off to find something else before I left the boys to it and went home to bed (it was GLORIOUS). But other than that I had a great time and would definitely do the package next time. Some nights, after the shows finished, we went off to the bars, trying out various ones, but most of them closed about 2:30 and they were bars rather than clubs. And most were so rammed with people it was nearly impossible to move.
Apart from the gay celebrations, we caught up with Adam for dinner on his last night in Sitges, and we spent time at the beach or went shopping or ate really good food. We didn’t explore beyond Sitges, mostly due to us sleeping most of the day away after being out til the small hours, but overall it was a relaxing, fun interlude in an otherwise go-go-go tour of Spain and Portugal.
The really nice thing about Sitges Pride was the variety of people in attendance. Someone called it Pride for Pensioners because of the large number of older people there, but really there was a breadth of ages in attendance and the vibe was generally welcoming and fun, as opposed to some others that are a bit more showy, pretentious and bitchy.
We packed up on the Monday morning after it all ended, ordered a maxi taxi, and set off back to Barcelona for our flight to Lisbon.
I must just add that one night Glen woke us up to say that the apartment was flooding. I’d been dreaming that it was raining and woke to see water pouring into our room through the light fittings. We roused and went in search of the leak, discovering that it was coming from not the floor above us, but the floor above them! Despite Glen’s repeated and loud attempts at waking up whoever was inside, it was to no avail. Instead, we focused on our apartment, putting out buckets and pots to capture as much water as possible.
It was also pouring in through our bathroom, down the air conditioner in the spare room, and down the stairs in the hallway. Eventually the water stopped coming and we were able to get to sleep. In the morning, we heard from the maintenance person that the person on the third floor had passed out in the shower and blocked the drain, thus leading water to overflow everywhere. By the time the maintenance got in there in the morning (we’d called to let them know but no one answered), everything had been cleaned up.
We met a man and a woman in front of the apartment building later that day who we thought were the owners but think must have been the building managers. They were apologetic and asked for any photographs/video we’d taken (thankfully Glen had taken a lot) and were then on their way to kick out the guests.
Later that night at the Pride party I met a guy who lives in Sitges and on further discussion found out that apparently he owns the apartment on the third floor and was renting it out during Sitges Pride while he stayed with a friend. I didn’t tell him about the problems we’d had with flooding as I didn’t want to ruin his night. Julian and Simon met him another night and he’d obviously been told. Over the course of a few days a lot of things in our apartment had swollen or peeled, and the hallway was smelling like mould. What a nightmare!
I don’t know how no one was electrocuted.
Travels with Dan 
What do you say, eh?