Sunday, September 18, 2005

Sitges - A Lazy Day

The hotel is really nice; the rooms have wooden floors instead the usual (noise transmitting) ceramic tiles. The furniture is standard hotel fayre, although solidly built and finished in a teak effect. Our balcony seems to get the sun all day, but the room itself hardly gets touched, which means it maintains a comfortable temperature without resorting to closing the curtains and running the air-conditioning.

This morning we had a leisurely breakfast. I was the first one down there at about 08:45 and we didn’t leave until 10:30. Jeremy was the last to join us, having gone out for a run along the seafront before eating. The dining room is lovely; a very modern, stylish design which opens out onto the terrace. After breakfast the rest of the gang ‘basted’ themselves (as John calls it) and hopped onto the sun loungers. I contemplated it, but in the end decided I’d be more comfortable in the adjoining lounge.

I’m still reading ‘A History of God’ and found I made good headway on it today, being able to concentrate instead of only having a fifteen minute train journey to spend reading.

A little later on I thought I’d try the hot tub on the terrace which was very pleasant; a comfortable water temperature kept me cool under the sun. John, Rich and Jeremy joined me, although Brett stayed baking and reading on his lounger. The clouds have all cleared now and it was a lovely Mediterranean day, made all the better by alternate massaging and spine-tingling provided by the jets and bubbles of the tub. I could get used to this!

Had a phone call from Chris C while I was drying off; having read my blog and seen where we were going, he’d rung to tell me about a major fireworks competition taking place in Barcelona towards the end of the week. An international competition between firework display companies; sounds like fun. We should be able to catch a night or two, even though we are flying back on Saturday. He said he would try to pop over for couple of days himself (he is in the display business too) to see what is going on, which would be great fun.

Anyway, shortly thereafter the boys felt the urge for lunch. The hotel does provide snack lunches, but we fancied something slightly more substantial and, as there aren’t any restaurants nearby, we took a stroll along the prom towards the town. I had my camera with me and started trying to be arty – unfortunately the best shots were marred by smudges on the lens where it had been splashed from the hot tub earlier. I’ve posted a few shots (here and here) for you to have a look at anyway on my photoblog.

After lunch, Jeremy and I walked up towards the church in the old town to have a look around while the others headed back to the hotel. The church itself was closed, but it had some interesting buildings behind it and a lovely view along the seafront back towards our hotel. After photographing all of the above, and taking a few shots of Jeremy staring out to sea, we headed back to the hotel to laze some more; eating lunch is a tiring business you know!

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