Life on the Serrated Edge

Today I had the glorious beyond glorious opportunity to go to Montserrat, one of the three major mountain range/natural preserve areas outside of Barcelona and home to a famous monastery of the same name.  Montserrat literally translates to "serrated mountains" and is named for the serious of peaks lined up next to each other.  Yet, the mountains aren't particularly pointy.  They're more... tubular.  In order to get to Montserrat, you take a train from Barcelona for about an hour which pops you off at the base of the mountain range.

Then you transfer to either a funicular (basically a single train car that rides straight up the mountain side on special tracks) or a cable car.

 You have to stand on the cable car, but it's only a five minute ride and the views, particularly on clear days, are spectacular.  It's like a grand entrance to the monastery, zooming in at a 45 degree angle to one of Barcelona's mysteries.

First view from the top!

 Out over the valley

Tubular mountains

 Once you get to the actual monastery level, you can wander about through a series of buildings.  It's a working monastery and even has a school for boys through age 14.  Oh, and thousands of tourists come through every day.

The main square

 As you wander through the main buildings, I'd advise making your way to the Basilica immediately.

 Basilica entrance

Inside the Basilica

 First of all, you should get to Montserrat bright and early (first train leaves Barcelona at 8:36, getting you to the monastery at around 10 AM) and then sprint past all the other tourists to secure your spot in line to touch the Black Virgin's orb.
 Part of the line already in existence by 10:20 AM
The Black Virgin (La Morneta) is a statue  of the Virgin Mary holding the baby Jesus in her left hand and an orb in her right hand.  The story goes that St. John, who had an artistic streak, carved the statue.  At some point, it became hidden in a cave for its safety, where it was later discovered... and was placed in the church.  While carbon dating says the statue is only 800 years old (still pretty darn good, in my book), people care less about its true story than the spirit of its presence.  Touching the orb, the only part of the statue not behind thick glass, is supposed to bring a sort of good luck/spirit to your endeavors.  The sick, newlyweds, and the recently baptized are common orb-touchers-in-need, although honestly everyone just touches the orb these days.  I even got to touch the orb!  Thank goodness I headed to the Basilica early.
Just outside of the actual church, across a small square, is a room where pilgrims can leave items for the Virgin Mary.  These can be to thank her for fulfilling a wish or to ask for ongoing support.  It can include wedding gowns, photos, or even latex representations of body parts that need some extra luck and lovin' from the Virgin's do-good powers.

 Also of note about Montserrat is its connection to St. Ignatius.  It's said that Ignatius of Loyola visited Montserrat in March of 1522 after recovering from his battle wounds, and that he laid down his military garb and converted.

Ma boy Ignatius

As you leave the Cathedral or particularly the Cloister (after giving Black Mary your wishes and touching her Orb of Wonder and Delight), you'll walk through a quiet path that seems to be almost a garden of candles.  Thousands of candles are sold in the courtyard by the honor system: deposit your coins and take the appropriate color and size of candle.  People then make their way to this quiet, cool path and light their votive from the all-day flames before placing it on one of the votive shelves and saying a prayer. 

 After checking the Basilica off my list, I decided to explore the glories of the mountains.  Luckily, my TransMontserrat ticket entitled me to unlimited on-the-mountain funicular use.  Montserrat has two funiculars: one to get down to the Sacred Cave (most of the way... you still have to walk 15-20 minutes) and another to get up toward the Hermitage of Sant Joan and other ridgeline trails.

View from the top of the Funicular Sant Joan

On my first hike, I decided to check out this Hermitage of Sant Joan.  I'd never seen an actual hermitage before, and since I pride myself on my hermit-like qualities, I had to pay my respects.  It turned out that there were actually TWO hermitages next to each other (ironic bonus points), both carved into the rock face by a little house.

 There are also hundreds of naturally-occurring caves in these mountains, as you can see on the neighboring mountain faces.

 It turns out that life as a hermit is even more appealing than I'd thought, hoped, or dreamed.  The view from the hermitages is pretty incredible.

Just a few meters away from the little house is the first hermitage, this one named after Sant Onofre and carved into the rock face overlooking the Hermitage of Sant Joan. Sant Onofre was a hermit who lived in the desert area of Asia minor for seventy years during the fifth century.  His hermitage was joined by a pathway to the hermitage of Sant Joan the Bapitst.  It had several low-ceilinged rooms, including a chapel, a kitchen, a vestibule, and two water deposits.  It was built around the year 1500.

Next to the Hermitage of San Onofre is the Hermitage of Sant Joan, built to take advantage of the rock face cavity and built just a few years later.  It gets the distinction of Best Located Hermitage, since on clear days you can see all the way to the islands of Mallorca and Menorca.  The Catholic equivalent of a sweet unassisted living facility AKA retirement home, this hermitage was frequented by burned out abbots and even King Philip III of Spain (he dined there; Kings don't sleep on rocks unless absolutely necessary, apparently).

 Next, I backtracked to the funicular and took another path, this one leading back down to the monastery.  The views on the OTHER side of the mountain range were equally gorgeous.

 And gave some cool perspectives on the monastery and its surroundings.

 By the time I got back down to the main square, the seriously devout were out in force.

 I was hoping to see the Escolania de Montserrat, a boys choir composed of the monastery's pupils that sings every weekday in the Basilica at 1 pm during the school year.  Since this was their last week of school, Ignasi had encouraged me to go before it was too late to hear them.  Every guide to Montserrat suggests getting there early, as hearing their 10-minute performance has become the most attended activity on the mountain.  I got there 25 minutes early, just in time to get one of the last seated spots at someone's feet on the steps up the side chapels. In other words, not prime real estate but way better than standing.

The church during the performance

People waiting in eager anticipation

 A welcome address was given by one of the monks in at least five different languages, and he then did a reading that he repeated in each language, as well.  I was very impressed.  Then the boys' choir filed out.

 While looking up things to do at Montserrat, I had noticed the Escolania's FAQ website included such pressing questions as "Do the choirboys become monks?" (No, they need to be older than 14 to make that decision), "Are the cohirboys normal children?" ("Yes, they are children who have a family that loves them very much."), and "Do the choirboys have arms?!".  This last question was surprising... why wouldn't they have arms?  It turns out that they wear a very specific type of surplus (the white bit) over their cassock (the black button-down robe bit) that has large oval arm holes instead of the more typical Anglican sleeves.  When not using their arms to hold music, they shleeeeeeerp them back inside of the cassock and walk around with no visible torso appendages.  The music was wonderful and really brought me back to my choir days, which I all of a sudden missed very much.

 The next stop at Montserrat was this Sacred Cave that everyone was talking about.  I mean, it had this path down to it, its own funicular, art along the way by all sorts of famous artists, and thousands of people wanting to touch its Precious.  I decided to walk instead of taking the funicular, so that I could enjoy the views and the art.  While there were many installations ranging in size, drama, and the fame of the artist, this black cross was one of my favorites.

 The ornate black cross has a crucified Jesus hanging from it and was constructed in 1896 through a collaboration by famed Moderniste architect Josep Puig i Cadafalch (of Block of Discord fame) and a sculptor named Josep Llimona.  As an architect, I like to think that Cadafalch really thought about the space and knew that this striking cross against the pure blue Catalan sky would be just the ticket.
Once I actually got to the cave, which is now surrounded by a chapel, I was a bit underwhelmed.  It was just a rock wall with a replica Black Mary.

 Here, again, people left offerings.

 Since the best part of my day had been my morning hike, I decided to use the rest of my afternoon here exploring more of the mountain ridge.  I chose to hike to the peak of Sant Jeroni, one of the tallest peaks that was supposed to have a spectacular view over the entire region.  The path varied from highly maintained (as below) to picking my way through woodsier parts to walking along the ridge line with the mountain falling away to both sides of my feet.  You have to wonder, though, how do they do construction up here?!

 While the mountain behind me in the previous picture was not my destination, I include dit so you could get a sense of that particular mountain.  You see, a few minutes later as I was walking around it, I heard voices... from above.  I wasn't having an Epiphany or witnessing some religious miracle.  It was just a regular old miracle of crazy men rock climbing.

 [Note: on my way back I met one of them! I told him that I couldn't believe he'd just climbed it and that I'd just climbed another peak the regular old way.  He found out I was from the US and said he's done a lot of climbing in Yosemite.  Yeesh.]
After about an hour of hiking, I got to ANOTHER hermitage, this one of Sant Jeroni.

 This guy had the right idea.  This hermitage is super duper isolated, plus it's a 10-minute walk from the most gorgeous view in existence.

 And when I got the top at around 4:20 PM, it was just me and the mountain ridge, making peace with each other.  In fact, the hike alone reminded me how much I love hiking and just being in the middle of the wilderness following a track through beautiful, rugged terrain.  It's the place where I'm most at peace.

 Luckily for me, after I'd had my fill of zen, two other intrepid climbers showed up and took some pictures for me!

 As we unpacked our snacks from our bags and hydrated after the long climb, we gazed wordlessly over what felt like all of Catalunya.

One frantic run down the mountain, funicular ride, and cable ride later, I made it to the train tracks in time to catch a ride home (meeting two Yale architecture grad students along the way! Small world) and meet Naaman for our evening adventure to... the Labyrinth Garden!

 While I'd looked this up on a map, I hadn't realized how close it was to my research institute.  Or that I'd run past it several times while accompanying Ellie and Victor/Marcos on Collserola Park adventures.  It was a hidden gem.  The Labyrinth Garden is located in the oldest park in Barcelona.  The actual labyrinth bit was build in 1791 by Marquis and landowner Joan Antoni Desvalls of d'Ardena.

Aha! An adventure WITHIN an adventure!

Decision time

Finding the exit

 It's an 820-yard long maze with a statue of Eros, the god of love, in the center.

 After exiting, we realized that by not getting to the center before getting out, we had failed.

 Only 750 people per day are allowed into the labyrinth, but since it's free every Wednesday and Sunday, we figured that today wasn't too special and we'd probably get in.  (We were right).
Plus, the rest of the park was gorgeous and there was plenty of fun stuff to do.

Spotted: A cloudy sunrise over Barceloneta.  There was this luminescent white orb in the middle of the sky and for about five minutes I was convinced it was a full moon.  It was absurd.  Then as the morning clouds burned off, I realized that it had been the sun all along.  Luckily, I found another sunrise photographer to send me this picture!