The archaeological investigations that have been carried out show that Sitges has been inhabited since very remote times

The first specific references to Sitges and its environs appear on parchments and other documents from the 10th century. Indeed, a locality called "the place of the ‘sitges" is on record from the year 991, when diverse silos ("sitges") were found among the ruins of the old Iberian and Roman settlement. These silos were cavities dug into the ground to store crops. This gave rise first to a place-name and later to the name of a castle and the town that grew up around it. The castles of Sitges, Miralpeix and Campdàsens, are on record from the first half of the 11th century, and the Garraf monastery appears in documents dating from the 12th century

The village of Sitges is located in Garraf county, south of Barcelona. Although the town’s origin is believed to be linked to the ancient OlArdola, the archaeological investigations that have been carried out in different points of the municipality show that the place where the village of Sitges now stands has been inhabited since very remote times. The discovery of the jaw bone of a Neanderthal man here in 1954 bears witness to the fact that humans inhabited this area in a period dating back t between 80,000 and 40,000 years before our era. The jaw was found in the Cova del Gegant, or Giant’s Cave, and was stored away in a box until recently, when two researchers from the University of Barcelona rediscovered it. The antiquity of this bone makes it one of the oldest human vestiges found anywhere in Catalonia. Likewise, remains of ceramics from the Bronze Age and from the Iberian and Roman periods have been found on the site where the Town Hall now stands.

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Sitges has always been a prosperous town, with a wealth based on shipping and the trade in wine with the Americas

In 1833, one of every four Catalans who traded with the Americas was from Sitges.

The products most commonly exported were clothing, table wines, malvasia wine and brandy. Not for nothing was Sitges the trading port of the winemaking Penedès region, although the most flourishing economic activity was farming until the industrialization. Fishing, for its part, was limited to a few boats moored in the Aiguadolç harbour

Each castle had its feudal lord but, during the 14th and 15th centuries, the Cathedral Almonry of Barcelona obtained, by purchase or legacy, the dominion of all these fortresses and territories, which now form the municipal district of Sitges. The town did not achieve its release and become part of the Royal Patrimony until the 19th century. Sitges has always been a prosperous town, with a wealth based on shipping and the trade in wine with the Americas. However, the big upsurge in its economy took place in 1778, following the enactment of a decree by Charles III that authorized direct trade with the New World. Many people from Sitges then came to travel to the Americas with the dream of making a fortune and returning some day to their native town. Although many came back with empty pockets, other grew wealthy overseas and, upon their return, they built great mansions in Sitges which may still be seen today. Their owners were called Cubans or Americans (see pages 82-87).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The isolation that marked Sitges from the medieval period came to an end in 1881 with the arrival of the railway. A few years earlier, in 1866, the urban growth of the town had begun with the construction of its expansion district, the second phase of which would coincide with the opening of the Vilanova-Barcelona line. However, the two most significant events that turned Sitges into a pole of cultural attraction were the discovery of the town by the celebrated artist Santiago Rusiñol, who transformed it into the cultural epicentre of the Modernista movement, and the visit of Charles Deering, a millionaire from the U.S.A. Deering came to Sitges with Ramon Casas and Miquel Utrillo, and with the latter as the manager of the works he built the monumental ensemble of the Palau Maricel, bringing about a radical change in the Old Town. Sitges’ fame grew steadily and in the 1920s an incipient tertiary sector arose in connection with the tourist trade, which became the foremost economic activity here as from the 1950s.

The construction of the Palau Maricel radically transformed the old core of the town of Sitges

In the mid-19th century, Sitges began to shift from a craft economy to an industrial one. The earliest factory to be established here was the Batlle I Companyia textile mill, which remained in operation from 1840 to 1868.

The "American" Joan Tarrida opened the town’s first large footwear factory in 1876, beginning an industrial tradition which was later continued by other Sitgetans, such as Pau Benazet and Rafael Termes, and which became the driving force of town’s economy for over half a century

One of the outstanding features of Sitges’ urban landscape is its impressive seafront, which extends for a distance of over two kilometres from the Point to Terremar Its present-day appearance is the result of a long process that began in the middle of the 19th century when the seafront was limited to La Ribera, the name given to the stretch composed between the Point and Bassa Rodona torrent (now Carrer d'Espanya). On reaching this point, La Ribera was closed off by a small fort and by a wall with loopholes that crossed the beach and jutted into the sea. Towards 1880, the construction of Domènech bridge over the torrent and the demolition of the fort and the defensive wall allowed the extension of La Ribera as far as today’s Avinguda Sofia. It was from the last decade of the 19th century, however, that La Ribera became an authentic seaside promenade, thanks to a series of urban improvements. Between 1895 and 1896, the first trees were planted in what was to become a luxuriant pine wood, which disappeared later in the fierce storms of 1940. Also in the year 1896, however; one hundred palm trees from the town of Elche reached Sitges and have lined La Ribera ever since then. The monument to El Greco was inaugurated two years later and Doménech bridge was reformed in 1900;

Sitges has some historical precedent reculats coming force backed by archaeological investigations have been made along the surface. The privileged status of their land, next to the Mediterranean Sea, favored the presence of human settlement in ancient times.

The first specific references to Sitges and lands appear in parchments and documents dating from the archives of the tenth century, a period in which the County of Barcelona was going to expand southward. In the year 990 as previously mentioned the site said silosAnd is due at that time discovered several silos (cavities dug in the soil for agricultural products there consevar) among the ruins of the ancient Iberian and Roman, and this finding gave name to a place first and then a castle and the town that appeared gradually around him. In the first half century XI as shown above the castles of Sitges and Miralpeix Campdàsens, and the s. XII Monastery Garraf. Each had its feudal castle, but over the s. Pia XIV and XV of the Barcelona charity managed by purchase or inheritance mastery of all these castles and paintings that today form the town of Sitges.

Sitges at that time was already a town with character villa, only because it was located beside the sea between Barcelona and Tarragona, and all she was surrounded by walls. The inhabitants cultivated vineyards and engaged in an active trade in the Mediterranean. From the Greek island of Monembàsia to import grape called Malvasia between us, which would name both in Sitges in the following centuries.

Wars and plagues have affected much the town, but towards the end of the sixteenth century began the increased cultivation of the vine, especially the Malvasia, to the point that was one of the first people to have an agriculture market. Silo had its own fleet of vessels dedicated to trade, which occupied nearly half of its population. At that same time the growing strength of the town raised the issue with his feudal baron, started a conflict that gradually came to give power to the municipality but not completed until the dissolution of the manorial system in the first half century XIX.

The s. XVIII Sitges to the U.S. market opened and devoted all the arable land that could become the vineyard. For this reason, cleared forests and contruïren margins, started the flow of emigration to America and good sailors and vessels engaged in voyages to that continent. As a result, the town's population grew and grew the town. Of the thousands who came to America in Sitges, a small party returned and was made to beautify the houses rather than showy streets of the town. Industrialization, a phenomenon typical of the s. Century, appears in the installation of some textile mills, which had no continuity, and shoe industries fabriació, activity that has reached the 1970s.

At the end of the century XIX Sitges had a rich culture based on new social organizations, in their theaters, in bands, choirs, etc.. And a beautiful landscape illuminated by the light of heaven from the sea that attracted the attention of several painters who formed the school Luminista. In the last decade of the century Century writer and painter Santiago Rusiñol Sitges chose to install it at your residence, the Cau Ferrat, and to hold the parties called Art Nouveau. Some other factors and were announced in Sitges outside and allowed his appeal was known everywhere. Since then, the tide began to build summer residences which finds its greatest exponent in urbanization since the 1920s, the sector of Terramar, and tourism gradually became large, looking sun and water on the beaches and a pleasant atmosphere for your stay.

The gradual improvement of land communications with the construction of the road to Barcelona in 1879, the railroad in 1881 and recently the highway, have been driving growth in Sitges that has not prevented the town maintains its historical roots and customs and traditions that are unique.