The trouble with the mountain on which the Monastery of Montserrat is situated is that it looks out of place in Europe.
The landscape leading up to the bizarre weather sculpted rocks is perfectly normal which makes the surrealistic setting of the monastery even more strange.
Te rock formations evoke the mesas and buttes of Death Valley rather than the more agriculturally lush surrounding countryside of Catalonia.
Our trip with the usual family contingent started with a visit to El Casot a typical masia or Catalan farmhouse which had been turned into a restaurant. This establishment was situated ten miles beyond men’s thoughts and only found after driving along near vertical single track roads. It was touching to find that the boundary between our road surface and the airy nothingness of certain death in valleys far beneath was a series of slender iron posts with a single smooth strand of wire slung between them.
Its position was spectacular with the unreal profile of the Montserrat peaks almost within touching range. This of course was a fallacy which was shown by the even more hair raising journey from the masia via a glorified concrete pathway before we picked up a ‘real’ road.
The meal was good with excellent Catalan bread. Due to my having misunderstood Toni’s translation for my choice of main meal I ended up with pig’s trotters and snails – a rather more adventurous choice than I would otherwise have made. Pigs’ trotters seem to have no meat on them at all and consist of bone and gristle covered thickly in fat. The fat being the delicious food that you are supposed to eat, augmented by the slimy deliciousness of the sails oozing gently out of their shells. Having said all that, I (sort of) enjoyed my dish, I think that the sauce was lively enough to give character to the whole meal. I was shocked however, to be asked by the waiter at the end of the meal if I had found the dish too spicy.
I still have a way to go to understand the Spanish definition of ‘spicy.’ I think that a korma would be about the limit of what they could eat in any reasonable Indian restaurant in Britain!
The monastery looked slicker that it had done for my first visit. Admittedly this time it was sunny and there was a more relaxed atmosphere than during my first experience of this monument to the religious heart of the Catalan people.
The restaurant was packed and the shops were doing a roaring trade, including the stalls outside which were selling a range of cheeses, honeys and different sizes of fig bread.
Carles, of course, injected a certain amount of secular noise into the otherwise reasonably religious subdued queue waiting to see the Black Madonna or Moreneta.
This small statue is located way above the high altar in the church in Montserrat on a raised plinth. She is accessible to the faithful (and also to we Anglican atheists) via a long queue which stretches down a side aisle and then ascends via a couple of flights of stairs to the Madonna herself.
The lady herself is a fairly squat seated figure holding the Christ child in one hand and an orb in another. As her adjective suggests she is in fact black and is protected from the elements and the faithful by a Perspex shield. Part of the orb, however, projects beyond this shield and this is the part of the idol that those queuing touch – for whatever reason.
Having touched (last time I kissed!) the orb we felt free to indulge our more carnal appetites firstly by having a well deserved cup of coffee and secondly by having a quick shop.
I was fully determined to buy a small version of the Moreneta as long as it was encased in an instant snowstorm globe. Alas, among the acres of poor taste pandering to the credulous church consumer there were no snow globes. I could have had the Holy Family in a gentle snow storm, but that was it.
Surely there is a niche in the marketing plan for someone who can show even less taste than the junk on view seems to indicate already exists. I am waiting to be called on a free-lance basis to advise on even more down market ideas to fleece the religiously inclined!
On the way back to the car I succumbed to the blandishments of a stall holder who started speaking English as soon as I started looking at the cheese. I think that I will have to resign myself to the reality that I will never be taken for a native of the peninsular. It is disconcerting though just to ‘be’ and be recognized as a foreigner before even my faulty grasp of Spanish nails the identification!
She plied me with increasingly tasty samples until I gave in and bought a cheese round and some eucalyptus honey.
Tomorrow Toni goes to Madrid for a week to help repair some machines for the company. Why they cannot find personnel in Madrid I do not know, but this away visit will possibly indicate their future intentions with his career. We will see.
The sun continues to shine.
Except at night, obviously.
The landscape leading up to the bizarre weather sculpted rocks is perfectly normal which makes the surrealistic setting of the monastery even more strange.
Te rock formations evoke the mesas and buttes of Death Valley rather than the more agriculturally lush surrounding countryside of Catalonia.
Our trip with the usual family contingent started with a visit to El Casot a typical masia or Catalan farmhouse which had been turned into a restaurant. This establishment was situated ten miles beyond men’s thoughts and only found after driving along near vertical single track roads. It was touching to find that the boundary between our road surface and the airy nothingness of certain death in valleys far beneath was a series of slender iron posts with a single smooth strand of wire slung between them.
Its position was spectacular with the unreal profile of the Montserrat peaks almost within touching range. This of course was a fallacy which was shown by the even more hair raising journey from the masia via a glorified concrete pathway before we picked up a ‘real’ road.
The meal was good with excellent Catalan bread. Due to my having misunderstood Toni’s translation for my choice of main meal I ended up with pig’s trotters and snails – a rather more adventurous choice than I would otherwise have made. Pigs’ trotters seem to have no meat on them at all and consist of bone and gristle covered thickly in fat. The fat being the delicious food that you are supposed to eat, augmented by the slimy deliciousness of the sails oozing gently out of their shells. Having said all that, I (sort of) enjoyed my dish, I think that the sauce was lively enough to give character to the whole meal. I was shocked however, to be asked by the waiter at the end of the meal if I had found the dish too spicy.
I still have a way to go to understand the Spanish definition of ‘spicy.’ I think that a korma would be about the limit of what they could eat in any reasonable Indian restaurant in Britain!
The monastery looked slicker that it had done for my first visit. Admittedly this time it was sunny and there was a more relaxed atmosphere than during my first experience of this monument to the religious heart of the Catalan people.
The restaurant was packed and the shops were doing a roaring trade, including the stalls outside which were selling a range of cheeses, honeys and different sizes of fig bread.
Carles, of course, injected a certain amount of secular noise into the otherwise reasonably religious subdued queue waiting to see the Black Madonna or Moreneta.
This small statue is located way above the high altar in the church in Montserrat on a raised plinth. She is accessible to the faithful (and also to we Anglican atheists) via a long queue which stretches down a side aisle and then ascends via a couple of flights of stairs to the Madonna herself.
The lady herself is a fairly squat seated figure holding the Christ child in one hand and an orb in another. As her adjective suggests she is in fact black and is protected from the elements and the faithful by a Perspex shield. Part of the orb, however, projects beyond this shield and this is the part of the idol that those queuing touch – for whatever reason.
Having touched (last time I kissed!) the orb we felt free to indulge our more carnal appetites firstly by having a well deserved cup of coffee and secondly by having a quick shop.
I was fully determined to buy a small version of the Moreneta as long as it was encased in an instant snowstorm globe. Alas, among the acres of poor taste pandering to the credulous church consumer there were no snow globes. I could have had the Holy Family in a gentle snow storm, but that was it.
Surely there is a niche in the marketing plan for someone who can show even less taste than the junk on view seems to indicate already exists. I am waiting to be called on a free-lance basis to advise on even more down market ideas to fleece the religiously inclined!
On the way back to the car I succumbed to the blandishments of a stall holder who started speaking English as soon as I started looking at the cheese. I think that I will have to resign myself to the reality that I will never be taken for a native of the peninsular. It is disconcerting though just to ‘be’ and be recognized as a foreigner before even my faulty grasp of Spanish nails the identification!
She plied me with increasingly tasty samples until I gave in and bought a cheese round and some eucalyptus honey.
Tomorrow Toni goes to Madrid for a week to help repair some machines for the company. Why they cannot find personnel in Madrid I do not know, but this away visit will possibly indicate their future intentions with his career. We will see.
The sun continues to shine.
Except at night, obviously.
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