Montserrat

Climbing to Montserrat

We took off by 8:45 for Placa d'Espanya with plenty of time to wait for the commuter train. We reached Montserrat via a roughening landscape, lush green cover over bright red clay hills, the rolling buttes of the Massif, among factories and habitations. The rock formations of Montserrat emerged, vertical plugs of sedimented stone, primitive beings of lumpy long concrete created by oceans 50 million years ago. You ride up on the funicular, up the sheer precipice where healthy olive trees, spruces, and yellow-leaved deciduous denizens of autumn break out among the massive wrinkles of the gorge.

High up, the cradled village of Montserrat appears, massive unornamented Italianate architecture, immaculate and heavy. The funicular brings you to the sanitized complex of souvenirs, an industrial-sized cafeteria, audiovisual introduction, all announced in gothic lettering. Not well explained are the rough centuries of Montserrat--under the future pope Julius II, she would acquire treasures later pillaged by Napoleon, who wrought considerable destruction to Montserrat, to claim his victory in Spain. 

Hermitage high above

You can see hermitages constructed high on rocky peaks where monks retired, but those stories are glossed over for the sake of the sanitized image of today's monks, enjoying their chats in well-appointed quarters while hoards of tourists mob the place with reverence. The goal: Evangelism. The tourism department had made it easy for us: for 40 euros we were able to take the metro, the train, the funicular, see everything, have lunch--you are funneled through without friction.

Monks' schedule, mostly prayers

The museum houses minor paintings by major artists, including Pissaro, Chagal and Monet) and fine works by 19th and 20th c Catalan painters, like those of the museum on Montjuic. Some of them learned by imitating Cezanne, Renoir and others, matching their technique, but with a Catalan focus on the vibrant colors and sturdy lives of high emotion of their own people. An extensive collection of Russian icons, many marble Maillol-like nudes. Jacques kept up a running commentary on the chastity of the monk wandering among the voluptuous stone ladies.

Morenetta

We entered the Basilica for the de rigueur visit to the Morenetta, the wide-eyed black skinned Madonna whose globe you are allowed to touch.

Legend has it that in the year 800 shepherds saw a bright light on the mountains, which led them to the Madonna.  When the bishop tried to move her she would not be moved, thereby causing the church to be built high in the mountains so pilgrims could reach her through penitence and conversion.

Through heavy marble chapels of grim martyrs, in contrast to the gauzy pre-Raphaelite paintings of the apse, we laboriously reached her, high over the church filled with people waiting to hear the boys' choir, and we touched the globe. As happens so often for me, I felt a transcendent energy from the Quanyin-like lady. Then we crowded into the back of the Basilica to hear the boys' sweet voices, and then rushed to the cafeteria to beat the crowds. Lunch was hearty, and mine, being mainly roasted vegetables, genuinely Catalan.

St. Joan

Finally we took the funicular up to the heights, on gravel pathways and up tricky rocky precipices. A long, laboriously carved ascent of steps called Jacob's ladder led to the ruins of an old hermitage, St. Onofrio, built into the creases of rock, and a ruined restaurant that had once accommodated a king. St. Joan's hermitage stands high and solitary, most lovely is the rosy tiled roof. Paths wind in mysterious tangles without much signage, so we climbed and descended the rocky pathways at Jacques' brisk pace, mounting precarious stone steps that led to muddy footing, secured by tree roots, to the Mary Magdalene porch, destroyed utterly by Napoleon, from which we could see the Montserrat Monastery below.

St. Onofrio, in the seams of rock

Looking down on Montserrat

Then we found ways to descend on a concrete and rock road over the green gorges, able to traverse the magic landscape on foot. Finally we took a silent, awestruck funicular ride down to the train, the dying light coloring the rocks pink, while a broad placid river wound below us under shaggy bent trees, over great rocks. 

We rode home in a drowsy train across from a rough homespun couple, she a mestizo Madonna with a deep, placid, motherly smile that sparkled, he a rough, open-faced aging boy who received her smiles with gratitude.