MONSERRAT MONASTERY
Spanish shrine with the Black Virgin
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When we found ourselves in Catalonia, we were faced with a difficult choice from a large number of excursions. The tours offered were for every taste and color, but the number of days was very limited. We decided for ourselves that we wanted a sightseeing tour of Barcelona, I chose a trip to the football match of all stars “Barcelona” - “Manchester United” , and Nata, for some reason, chose the rocky monastery of Montserrat, about which at that time we knew nothing at all ... I began to moan that we are not engaged in religious tourism in order to allocate a whole day for one church ... and so on ... But there is one justice for everyone: we chose the panoramic Barcelona together, I chose football, and Natasha chose Montserrat ... Therefore, one of the beautiful days we boarded a bus that took us to the Benedictine monastery, which was hidden among the high rocks.
If at that moment I understood that visiting Montserrat would be one of the brightest impressions of our Spanish voyage, I would have been less boring and more accommodating :-)
The closeness to the monastery will tell you the rock, which the Spaniards call the "Finger of God".
The easiest and most beautiful way to get to the monastery is by funicular. The lower station of the funicular with the beautiful name "Cremallera" is about an hour's drive from Barcelona.
We bought tickets and waited for the first day train to the top. It is easy to find out from the photo that the first train leaves at 9:30. Slowly and solemnly, our train climbed the rock.
And so, we are walking high among the rocks. And many rocks around the monastery are very similar to human figures. For the first twenty minutes, all visitors to Montserrat walk with their heads held high.
Montserrat will delight connoisseurs of sculpture. The territory of the monastery is decorated with statues everywhere. There are modern works, like St. George from Subirax , and classical examples.
In one of the cave tunnels of the monastery there are platforms for candles.
The difference from what we saw in Ukraine was that the candles here are plastic tubes of different heights with a wick inside. The higher the tube with a candle, the more expensive it is. From 2 to 10 euros. It is easy to distinguish them by their color: blue, green, red, etc. And it is very important - in order to light a candle, the visitor does not need to contact anyone. There just stands a podium with tube candles with the indicated price, and next to it is a money box and a stand with two large (human-sized) burning candles for lighting.
Choose a candle, leave the money, and light it. After that, put it in an empty spot.
The inner courtyard of the temple in the monastery is a very interesting place. The drawing on the floor of this courtyard contains many philosophical symbols and some guides highly recommend standing in the central circle in order to feel the energy that radiates in this place.
From the courtyard there is an entrance to a special room. It has its own name - "Thanksgiving Room". Pilgrims are sure that the statue of the Black Virgin of Montserrat , which is kept in the monastery, works wonders. Thousands of people come here to ask Virgo to fulfill their desires. And after their wish came true, grateful petitioners bring to the monastery evidence of miracles that happened: unnecessary crutches, wedding dresses, bibs of newborn babies. We were most moved by the letter we saw on the table in this room, where a woman (in December 2014) asked for peace in Ukraine ... We really believe that this pilgrim's wish will come true, because millions of Ukrainians dream about it.
And we also had our own request, which we addressed to the Montserrat Virgin. We very much hoped for her help and for this we stood in a long line of pilgrims. You can see this queue in the still image of our next video. The people behind the columns, fenced with red ribbons, are pilgrims who are waiting for the opportunity to touch the black Virgin of Montserrat.
This is what the line to Virgo looks like from the inside. At the same time, the same number of visitors stood behind us.
The guards launched people in groups. We stood in this line for over an hour, looking at all kinds of bas-reliefs. When the door opened and we were allowed to pass, we found ourselves in a dark corridor located to the right of the hall where the services were held. And, after a few pauses caused by the long communication of visitors with Virgo, we achieved our goal. The entire statue is fenced in with bulletproof glass. And only the sphere that she holds in her hand protrudes through the opening of this protection. It is to this sphere that pilgrims touch, who find themselves for a few seconds at the dais near the Virgin. During this time, they need to be in time: mentally repeat their desire, touch the sphere with their hand and quickly start descending, because the following citizens are behind them, who are eagerly awaiting their turn to touch the shrine.
Each of us, having gone through this whole ritual, was excited and spiritualized. Nata and I returned to the square in front of the monastery. At this moment, rethinking the world around you can only be tightly holding hands. This is exactly what we did, surrounded by beautiful rocks.
From the state of catharsis we were taken out of the tickets, which we bought at the lower station of the funicular. They indicated that in addition to visiting the monastery, we included a tasting of liqueurs produced by local monks. Isn't it cool? The girl who conducted the tasting suggested trying four types of liqueurs by a glass. One of them was very "cocky" - 31 degrees! It's amazing that four types of liquor are tasted, and then five are offered for sale! This is apparently some kind of marketing ploy, when customers see five liqueurs on the window, but have tried only 4 and, for the sake of curiosity, buy an unknown brand of drink.
The views from various parts of the monastery are magical. In order for you to appreciate them at their true worth, we have made a separate gallery of photos. (Photos below are clickable)
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Leaving the monastery in the direction of the parking lot, where the bus was waiting for us, we passed the market, and there are sold dozens of types of cheeses and other goodies. But cheese is the main thing! Each vendor lets you taste any of the cheeses from the showcase - goat, sheep, cow, saffron, hard, soft, etc. Never before have we tasted so much cheese in half an hour. We no longer understood how one differs from the other and returned to re-check the taste of this or that cheese. But, don't worry, you won't be able to leave without shopping, because the sellers there are super-professionals. The girl in the photo below spoke to us in Russian. When tourists from Germany came up, I calmly switched to German, and with the Japanese who came up, I spoke in Japanese. It was fantastic - she spoke in parallel with three groups of buyers in three languages: Russian, German and Japanese.
What else do we remember at Montserrat?
1. School of choral singing for boys, which is located at the bottom of the rock in the form of a man. The blinds were closed because the guys were on vacation.
2. Holy spring, where we collected a bottle of water for the journey.
3. Statue of the founder of the monastery near the hotel.
When you decide to visit Montserrat, be sure to take a picture in the corner of four trees: Palms, Cypress, Olive and Laurels. They symbolize: beauty, wisdom, peace and honor.
It seemed to us that one day is not enough to visit Montserrat. There are many mountain paths and attractions that we physically did not have time to see. Therefore, our future plans are to book a room at a local hotel for 2-3 days and explore the lands and rocks around the monastery in more detail. And at the end of our first trip, we took a romantic photo near the beautiful rotunda, standing high on the cliff.
Montserrat Monastery is a holy and very interesting place! Recommended!
