Sitges is a very gay town, and we had a very gay holiday. We drank gay drinks in gay bars, danced to gay music in gay clubs, had gay sex in gay apartments, got gay tans on gay beaches with our gay friends, surrounded by gay men.

Sitges is also a very late-night town. We went out to eat at 10pm, hit the bars around midnight, and the club at 2am. Hence very late breakfasts around noon the following day, before spending the afternoon on the beach.

Sitges has quite a few beaches, but if you're a gay man, you'll probably only bother with two of them. The main gay beach is in front of the hotel Callipolis. It's packed wall-to-wall, cheek-to-cheek, nose-to-butt with muscled flesh. Defined, delicious, slim, stocky, ripped, rippling, pumped-up, perfect, gorgeous, grotesque: a gym lifetime membership seems to be de rigeur. The SkinnyBoyfriend and I resolved to sign up immediately on our return.

The beach is a veritable Babel: we heard English, Spanish, German, Italian, Swedish, Dutch, even Icelandic. And everywhere, the constant cry of the drinks sellers: "Agua, Coca-Cola, Cerveza, naranjada..."

There is a gay nudist beach, too, but it's an hour's walk and we didn't bother.

We lay on the beach till around 6pm most days, then had a couple of beers under the gaudy umbrellas outside Parrots Pub. Situated on the busy Plaza Industria, this is the ideal place to people-watch. Simply everybody parades past Parrots at some time. We named it the catwalk.

to be continued...