Montserrat was Marvelous! ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Well ... I just spent an hour writing all about our time in Montserrat and I accidently hit the wrong key on the keyboard and it all vanished. I am too tired to rewrite it all ... so ... I'll just say how much we enjoyed it.

We learned so much and met some lovely people. If I have the energy, I might try and rewrite it here tomorrow. For now, I will just post the pictures.

Suffice to day, I really LOVED one of the mountains in my day today. Montserrat was marvelous. This travel mountain ... losing my post ... not so much. 😣

EDIT: The old boy is still sawing logs so I thought I would take these moments to write up a few things before I forget it all.😊 I'll try to be more careful where I place my fingers on the keyboard.

Montserrat got its name because the peaks of the mountain are so "serrated". It will be celebrating it's 1000 anniversary next year. There is still a choir of 50 Benedictine Monks that live in Montserrat. There is also a boarding school for children aged 8 to 14 years of age.

It woluld likely be a very quiet place except for all the tourists and the businesses/farmers who like to market their products to all the tourists who visit. We tried the infamous cottage cheese and honey. We also tried a cone filled with various cheeses. Oh ... and we had to try the four different kinds of liquor that is made by the monks.

And, of course, there are many Christians visiting Montserrat in hopes of touching the Black Madonna. She is the Patron Saint of Catalonia. It is believed that she blesses those within her reach, so many people line up to walk past her and touch her. We opted for the dinner and wine tasting at a local vineyard instead.

I took a very terrible photo of the Black Madonna from so far away and I cropped it even more. It does not do her justice. We learned that she was not black to begin with but was carved of wood and varnished. Over time, the varnish turned black. At one point, they tried to get her off the mountain but legend has it she became so heavy that they took it as a sign that she needed to remain on the mountain. So, instead of bringing her to a church, they designed a church around her.

And, the Basilica was incredible. It has the most intricate facade of Jesus and his disciples on the front of it. Each of the disciples can be named given the details in their carving. St Peter has the keys to heaven, St James has the shell of the camino etc. Judas is on the far left (looking at the photo) and has his eyes downcast ... his hand filled with the riches he was paid to betray Jesus.

There is a painting of Mary holding Jesus after his crucifixion inside. It is believed that she is about 46 when he was killed. The Basilica is not ornate like so many others but it holds a majesty and reverence that can be felt as you move through it. We've seen a lot of churches, cathedrals and Basilicas in our travels. I have a hard time remembering them (aside from the Vatican because it was so OVER THE TOP). But, I think I will remember this one for some reason.

After our tour through Montserrat, we went to a local organic vineyard for lunch and then some wine tasting. The meal was so good ... and I was hungry by then ... I completely forgot to take pictures. Someone took a photo of our tour group and shared it with us.

We've also been on a number of wine tours in our life, so I wasn't expecting to learn very much ... but ... we learned so much during this tour!! Our guide, Dani, was exceptional. He is also a school teacher and he was so entertaining and informative.

Apparently it takes 100 days for the grapes to mature. They prefer to use French Oak barrels, but the barrels only last about 4 years. After that, they are used for whiskey. Because this vineyard is organic, they use donkeys to chew down the growth between the rows. And, they welcome bats to consume hundreds of pounds of insects during the growing season. They even erect little houses to encourage the bats to stay.

This vineyard typically produces 150,000 bottles of wine every year but due to the drought ... they only produced 80,000 last year. Oh ... interesting fact! It is against the law for vineyards in Spain to use irrigation. Because there are so many types of grapes and differing climates, they want each region to produce the type of wine that is naturally produced without any human interventions or artificial supports.

We enjoyed the wine tasting very much. We tried a 2023 white ganache. It was really nice. It would be excellent on a hot summer day. We also tried a red blend ... we tried the 2023 and then the 2019 of the same kind so we could see and taste the difference that maturity makes on the wine.

The older wine was deeper in color and more orange toned around the edges. It had also grown some thin legs as we call them. In Spain, though, they call them 'tears'. I love that ... it is so poetic, no? ✨ The older wine was also much less acidic! I much preferred it. It had a bolder taste to it as well.

All in all, it was a great day. We would highly recommend that you take this phenomenal tour with Castle Experiences if you ever get a chance. Their tour guides made the trip even more interesting and entertaining. They were hilarious.

Okay my dear ones ... I am going to make some coffee and hopefully the old boy will wake up soon!! xo, k&j ❤️Meer informatie