St. Sadurni d'Anoia

Not a lot went right yesterday. Rashmi and I took an hour-long train to St. Sadurni d'Anoia, where there are a lot of cava (Spanish champaigne) producers, hoping to tour the bodegas during the afternoon. We started out at the Freixnet winery (see picture), but as we found out at the front gate, they are open every day of the week . . . except for Saturday. Yes, that's right, you can tour the winery right after church service, but not on a Saturday afternoon.
OK, not a problem. Down the road is Codorniu, Catalunya's oldest cava producer, which we had planned to see after Freixnet. We stepped into the restaurant at the train station and gave them a call, which I wouldn't have done normally but given the surprise we encountered at the first bodega I figured it was a good idea. "Hello, um, my girlfriend and I would like to come take a tour in the next half-hour. You are open right now, aren't you?" The receptionist at Codorniu answered, "Oh, senor, I'm really sorry, but we closed 10 minutes ago." It was 2:10 right then; go figure.
Having struck out twice with the cava tours, I thought we might have better luck heading down the road to Vilafranca de Penedes, where we had toured the Torres winery earlier. Yesterday was the start of their weeklong Festa Major, which consists of street fairs, markets, and several displays of Castellers, giant human towers of as many as 30 people. I thought we'd head down there and at least catch some of the Festa before we made our way back to Barcelona. When we arrived there, the town was a ghost town. Trash from the morning's festivities blew through the streets as everyone in the town seemed to be enjoying their siesta. Eventually, we found an open coffee shop, where I stopped to ask when the festa would start back up. I came to find out that the first day of the festa was a very solemn day, centered around the older members of the town reading traditional literature to the crowds before the real festivities began. There would not be any street fairs or castellers until tomorrow, and the closest we came to seeing any was the statue in the square. Strike three!
Rashmi was kind enough not to rub in the fact that all of this aimless wandering had been my idea. I tried to make it up to her by taking her to Petit Paris, a French restaurant in Barcelona, where we were served the best meal we have had in our time here. It was a bit daunting, however, as I ended up eating a carpaccio, the contents of which I am still unaware.