Monks on a mountain - Montserrat

Saturday 1/4 After getting pretty much nowhere on Friday afternoon we decided to do a full day tour instead of doing our own thing, much more efficient and time-effective, so chose to go to Montserrat and then lunch and wine tasting at a 10th century castle – what’s not to like about that? Taxi to a bus hub, met up with our really lovely tour guide Guille and a group of 17 so not too big. Guille is from Argentina, mid-20’s, bubbly and did a great job. The group was mainly American, and we ended up mostly with a Filipina woman, Chris, who worked in the Telecom supply industry based in Dubai, and was travelling on her own. She was good company.

It was good to see more of the main city, we remembered that many of the houses (or really apartment blocks I guess, several storeys high) had quite ornate balconies, this time I noticed pulleys sticking out below the roofline, I guess no other way to get stuff in other than through the front windows – what a task! Further out we were seeing what seemed to be shantytowns, bits of tin and whatever spread out, some with little vege plots around them, but most in very scrubby countryside and sad to see. The area is very dry, not a lot of rain in the past months and farms are struggling.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Maria_de_Mo…

Montserrat (‘serrated/jagged mountain’ if you hadn’t guessed the translation) dominates the views as you get out of the city, it was about an hour’s drive and Guille gave a good commentary on the way about Barcelona’s history, the use now of the mountain for rock climbing and dare-devil jumping etc, and then about the abbey’s history. I’ve put in the link, lots of detail about this lovely place dating back to the supposed discovery of the Black Madonna in a cave on the mountain in 880. There have been bad bishops, miracles, destruction by Napoleon, good times and bad, but it is an amazing place to visit and very well done with an emphasis still on the pilgrim side of it with the monks taking care of visitors and the abbey but not visible usually until after 6pm when only those staying in the abbey’s accommodation part are left.

In essence the train from Barcelona goes close to the abbey but then you either walk uphill or get a gondola or smaller railway to the abbey itself. It’s on a small plateau which you can see in a photo I cribbed from our visit in 2017. At that time we took the funicular right up high above but today it was closed due to fire risk on the mountain, we saw several fire crews as we travelled. So, although closed at times, the funicular is one ‘attraction’ and as for the rest: you can hike half an hour to a cross on another high point, take a path downhill to a small chapel on the site of the famous cave, there are two cafes if you’re hungry, an interactive ‘history of the abbey’ display which takes about half an hour, the museum/art gallery, the church itself with the famous Madonna………..and great views and some other walking paths. The abbey supports a famous boys choir, live-in tuition and music up to when the voices break, not singing at the moment because of school holidays but tourists can hear them in the church each day when they’re there.

The whole group went to the church and had a good look around, beautiful stained glass and statues, and to the side there was a constant stream of people going up the steps above the altar, walking in front of the Madonna, brief stop to pray, then out again. You had to buy tickets for that, which some of our group did, Chris especially was so happy to have done that. There was a statue outside of (I think) St Joseph and his eyes followed you wherever you walked to the side or in front – creepy but clever.

Pete and I went to the museum/art gallery, some very serious value in their art collection with Picasso’s old fisherman (and I had no idea he painted ‘normal’ pictures, this was from when he was about 30 and is so lifelike), others from Caravaggio, Degas, Monet, Breughel, and many others. Some beautiful paintings and we spent a lot of time there and then in the museum itself with all sorts of things from an Egyptian mummy to the richly decorated works of gold, enamel, silver etc in the ‘treasury’. There’s also an enormous library with extremely old and valuable books and manuscripts though not open to the public.

Last stop was the interactive display which started with a big video of the history from discovery through to Napoleon’s destruction and through to now, then walk-through information about all sorts of things, sporting activities on the mountain, and finished with a short concert video from the choir and it looks as though the boys have a good life of music, general education, travel for concerts around the world etc. We met up at 1.45 with the rest of the group at the cheese and honey stalls set up at the gates, plenty there to try and buy if you wanted, all very high quality apparently. The abbey wasn’t hugely busy though there seemed to be an awful lot of cars in the carpark as well as a few buses, so we’d had around three hours to look around in total and now be overcrowded.

I’ve put in a couple of photos from 2017 taken from the top of the funicular so you can see the layout and of the Madonna because on that visit we did see her up close.

https://ollerdelmas.com/energia-i-sostenibilita…

We drove on for half an hour to the Oller del Mas winery for a late lunch, but first walked about 500m round the edge of the vineyard which looked a bit scruffy to my eyes but they told us they are a sustainable vineyard (not quite organic) and don’t mow between every second row in alternate years but let the grass and plants grow then plough them in for nutrients, do the same with the alternate row the following year. The vines were cut right back with just a few leaves of the new season’s growth showing. It would be a beautiful sight in summer. The centuries-old castle has been joined by a few very posh-looking ‘cabins’ for accommodation, another money-making scheme to keep things going, they looked very inviting.

The group and Guille sat around the table for delicious vegetable soup, chicken with potato and asparagus, crème Catalan to finish, and two glasses of the Oller del Mas wine which was the start of the ‘tasting’. We moved into the castle for that – four fairly generous offerings (Pete felt obliged to drink my red), then a short tour of part of the building including a look at very old cellars through grill doors, no chance of borrowing another bottle. I’d love to have seen more about the history of the family itself, there’s a bit in the link above if you go through it though.

We had time for a wander round the grounds, sat for a while in the garden chatting while some bought more wine to take home and Pete had a glass of their special ‘orange’ wine to try (at $25, he didn’t realise that’s what he paid!). We’d been told all through about the family-run aspect and Pete asked the young man behind the bar if he was one of the family. The answer was ‘definitely not, with the money they’ve got they wouldn’t be doing this job’.

An hour’s ride took us back to the city, we had a bit of a spell then went across to the Gothic quarter for tea, found the Bar des Pi that we’d been to first on our food tour so thought ‘that’s good for us’, tapas and a glass of cava and beer and we were set. Another good day on our holiday - and I've loaded the photos from the winery in the next episode....Read more