Vilanova And The Geltr?

This week I revisited Vilanova i La Geltr? after… hey, the last time was before we had the kids, wasn’t it? I’d certainly never been beyond Sitges on the train, and that was decades ago. We drove everywhere, and we almost always went to the mountains - a village in the Solson?s - where my late husband’s family had a house.  Enric hated the beach, and I have to admit, I dislike it too when it’s packed out.  About ten years ago we drove to Sitges first thing on a Saturday morning after leaving a long-lost cousin from Cuba at the airport.  I found it divine, and Enric was just about okay until the crowds started to arrive.

We had friends in Vilanova who invited us down for a meal every so often. They belonged to an old-established Catalan family who lived in a stately four-storey mansion in the old part of town: generations of women, with assorted husbands, cousins, nieces and uncles, and a great-grandmother - bes?via- who was nearly 100 and made lace in the traditional way, even though by then she could barely see. And bes?via did the cooking. She would start after breakfast, making traditional Catalan stews in huge earthenware dishes that were cooked on the slowest of fires for hours and hours and hours. Dishes like conill amb c?rgols. Once when we arrived, a well-meaning uncle who prided himself on speaking some English opened the door to us and said: "I hope you have hungry. Today we have rabbit with nails." I had to force myself not to laugh. We were ushered inside, where I could hear bes?via in the kitchen, stirring a pot, which rattled. I'd never been a lover of shellfish and snails, and that loudly rattling casserole put me right off them for ever. Anyway, Uncle Santiago's muddled English was still rather good in comparison with the English version of The Vilanova Guide on the Net. If you take the walking and cycling paths, you must "follow the vertical signaling that there is in most of the journeys and the horizontal signaling with the help of white and red fringes." Fringes? ("GR" Long Distance Route), white and yellow (PR) or white and green (local path). Oh... they mean arrows? And who wouldn't give their airm to ride the Foix Swamp route? "It is a long route, of 30 Kms, very interesting to make in bicycle BTT, and also on foot. The differences are of certain consideration, specially uncomfortable for the BTT because of the stones of the land. It travels the most interesting forms of the interior landscape of the Garraf: summits with excellent views, funds of startling silences and varied vegetations." (Sic, sic and sic) And, after our exertions, La Platja "seafaring tavern" sounds pretty good. This "offers them traditional and innovative seafaring cuisine: Fideu?s (noodles), Seafaring Rice, Cod to "muslin" of garlic and oil ("all i oli"sauce), Fish Appetizers and Shellfish, Crustaceans to vapor, Squids with mushrooms, Fritters of the sea fruits, "Suquets" sailors, and desserts of home made elaboration." No nails, though.