torres winery, "calcotada" lunch, and sitges

Today we had our make-up day-trip that was canceled two weeks ago because of the wind. We all met at the buses at 10:30 AM and headed an hour away to the Torres family winery. I thought we were going to be having a wine tasting and see how the wine was made; however, we only got to watch movies about how the wine is made and we only got to try one glass of white wine. It was interesting to see the vineyard though and I walked away buying some wine of my own that I'll be able to try.


After the winery we went to a restaurant to have a "calcotada" lunch. Calcot is the name given to a local variety of spring onion which is cultivated in the Tarragona region of Spain. There is a whole multi-seasonal process that people go through in order to grow the onions. Once the calcots are picked, they are cooked over an open flame that causes the outer layer chars and then, in order to eat them, the outer layer is peeled off leaving the inside that is then dipped into a spicy sauce. Because the onions are picked from the ground between November to April, the calcots represent the coming of Spring and they're really good.

Along with the calcots, we were given toasted bread, tomatoes, garlic, and alioli (garlic and oil sauce). We took the toasted bread, rubbed the garlic on it, rubbed the tomatoe on top of that, and put the alioli on top and it tasted just like a cross between bruschetta and garlic bread. This is a popular starter dish in a lot of restaurants here, it's called "pan con tomate" in spanish and "pam a tomaquet".

We were then served artichokes that were also cooked over an open flame and we ate the hearts. After that, salad was served. Then they brought out roasted red peppers and sausage along with french fries and white beans. The meal ended with a glass of cava and some ice cream. The meal was huge, which is pretty traditional for lunch in Spain; usually lunch consists of a multi-course meal and dinner is very light (like tapas).

After lunch, we drove an hour to the beach town of Sitges which is 35 minutes away from Barcelona by train. The town was soooo cute, it reminded me of Ocean Drive on South Beach but with much less people and much less going on. There were a lot of beaches that I will definitely be heading to once the weather warms up a little. Supposedly they have an amazing Carnival celebration there so I'm also going to try and visit that depending on my travels.


Speaking of travelling, I've already booked London and Geneva!! I think I'm going to go visit Sarah Walker in Florence this coming weekend, the weekend after that is Geneva, then I think I might stay in Barcelona because people are coming to visit from Monaco. London is the first week in March. Christina and Sammy come on the 15th so I might book a mini trip from the 12th-14th to meet up with Sarah again. I'm thinking of either Paris or Milan for the weekend of my birthday and I still have to fit in Amsterdam. Hopefully I'll be able to fit everything in, I'll keep you all posted.

Tonight I think we are going to meet up with girls from our day trip and go out all together, and tomorrow I really want to get to Gaudí's La Pedrera and Casa Battló but it's supposed to rain. I also have to get all of my homework in because we have our FC Barcelona football match on Sunday at 6:15PM which should be A LOT of fun! I'll write back Monday letting you all know how the rest of my weekend went.