Sitges: the idyllic beach town down the road from Barcelona

About sixty years ago, before my wife was born, her parents set off on a driving holiday to the Continent. They drove down through France and into Spain and ended up in Sitges. They went no further. They’d found the perfect holiday resort, a historic town with a sandy beach and a few bars and cafes, somewhere to sit back and enjoy the sunshine, with a bit of local culture thrown in.

Sixty years later, Sitges is a lot busier, but British tourists are still relatively rare. Most visitors are Spaniards, mainly daytrippers from Barcelona. There are some modern buildings, and a lot more bars and cafes, but the town still looks much the same. Compared to most Spanish beach resorts, it’s remarkably unchanged. My wife Sophie and I first went to Sitges in 1999. She was pregnant with our first child (our son Edward, as it turned out). She wanted to go somewhere hot but not too hot, lively but not too lively, somewhere with a nice beach and a pleasant hotel and a few quaint, authentic restaurants.