Montserrat and La Pedrera

Monday’s big agenda item was a full-day tour to Montserrat. We were still a bit dejected from the game having been cancelled on Sunday, and we headed out somberly walking to the tour company office, near the beautiful modernist Palace of Music, stopping at Starbucks on the way for some American-style coffee and a bit to eat.

We met up with the tour guide and about eight other people and walked to Plaça de Catalunya to find our bus. The guide took off quickly, seemingly not to notice Gywen’s pace, so by the time we reached the bus most of the front seats were taken. Barry and I sat in the very back, to avoid sitting over the wheel well. Our guide Lorea told us some tidbits about the city and the various sites we passed as we made our way toward the outskirts of town and further into the countryside. She was knowledgeable and interesting, but we both dozed off a bit in the back of the bus. I realized how nice it was not to be travelling with students so I could sleep through the tour if I wanted to. But I woke up as we approached Montserrat – the Serrated Mountain – and marveled at the amazing views of the countryside and the monastery as we approached.

It was an overcast day, so we didn’t have particularly clear views when we arrived, but it was still fairly spectacular viewing the surrounding hillsides from above from this dramatic setting, and seeing how the clouds blanketed them. Lorea told us what we needed to know as she guided us from the parking lot past the entrance to the boy’s boarding school, street vendors, shops, funiculars, trailheads, museum entrance, and plaça to the Basilica entrance. She then released us to explore for about three hours on our own.

Ascending the funicular.

Three hours is hardly enough time, as the museum is filled by works by many of the masters, there are days-worth of hiking trails leading to remote chapels and spectacular monastery views, and the Black Virgin – the statue discovered in a cave by children in Medieval times, and the primary reason people have studied and worshiped at this site for more than 1000 years. None of this we saw. We had to budget our time carefully to hit some of the other highlights. Our first order of business was a trip further up the mountain on the funicular to St. Joan. The funicular only travelled every 12 minutes or so, but it only took about 2 minutes to load it, so we felt like they weren’t making the most efficient use of everyone’s time. We stood in line for a bit… not a long time, but long enough for me to think about my past experience with funiculars. This was the third one of our trip (the second one being essentially a lift in a Metro station) and I suddenly realized I’ve ridden funiculars on 5 continents. We joked that it was Un-American to not make more efficient use of the time (thus allowing greater revenue creation), but before long we were on the way up the VERY long and steep railway to the top.

On the viewing platform.

At the top, we allowed ourselves just over half an hour. We were surprised to discover that trails led away from the funicular in both directions, and that hiking the length of either of them would take hours. While Gywen sat and enjoyed the view, Barry and I walked a short distance one direction, to see where the trail led, and then walked a bit further in the other direction, on a trail that fairly quickly reached the top of a ridge. We wanted the views, especially the view of the monastery below, but we were so high – and the slopes were so steep – that the monastery was completely out of view. We headed back, and just before riding back down we discovered a nice viewing platform on the top floor of the funicular building, from which the monastery was visible. Back at the bottom, it was time to walk back to the basilica to wait for the boy’s choir performance. The boys in the boarding school have a world-famous choir, and every day at 1:00 the choir sings two prayers in the basilica. When we arrived around 12:35, the line to see the Black Virgin was very long, We went directly into the already-crowded basilica, found a seat for Gywen, and marveled at the spectacular building (including the distantVirgin in her shrine) as the people kept flooding in to hear the performance. At 1:00, a priest gave a welcome and read a Bible verse in six different languages (impressive!) before the boys entered and sang two lovely hymns.

The performance complete, it was time to have some lunch before meeting the rest of the group back near the parking lot. We bought a baguette in the shop and visited the street vendors to buy some rosemary goat cheese, figs, a fig loaf, peaches, and nuts for our picnic on the terrace.

When we boarded the bus, we drove down around the other side of the mountain and south toward the coast for a tour of a cava cellar. We stopped at Cordoniu, which Lorea said was more popular with the locals than some of the nearby cellars which produce more cava for export. There was a beautiful view of Montserrat from the vineyard, but we didn’t linger there ling before heading to the beginning of the tour. I was surprised, and thrilled, to discover that the cellar and cava bar had been designed by a modernist architect – it was a beautiful space with a tall arched ceiling, stained glass, and interesting hexagonal block glass windows. Nearby was an impressive large family home, now used only as an event space, and the “museum” housing wine presses and barrels dating back to the 1600s. (Cordoniu was founded in 1551; they produced the first cava around 1876.) This large, long building originally served as a production/shipping facility and barrel storage, and I believe it may still serve that purpose, but I honestly didn’t catch a lot of what our tour guide there was trying to convey. After a wlak-through of the museum area we went downstairs – and then down again, down and down until we reached 100 feet below ground. The big surprise at the end of the twisting staircase was the real cave (“cava”) where thousand of bottles aged – approximately 23 kilometers of tunnels lined with racks of something like 100 bottles each. Each cave had its own name which, I assume, helps the workers navigate the tunnels like a street grid. The guide told us a bit about the production process, which I didn’t understand, and then we all hoped on a little “train” to take a relatively speedy ride through the caves, I assume to give us a better impression of their immensity. I thought it seemed a little “Willy Wonka,” and in my head I kept singing “There’s no earthly way of knowing, which direction we are going…”

Gywen learning the
proper way to drink cava.

At the end of the train tour, we took an elevator up to the tasting room for samples of two different delicious cavas. The guide used Gywen as a guinea pig to demonstrate what he claimed was the proper way to hold and drink from a cava glass – grasping the base of the glass between the thumb and forefinger. After finishing the enjoyable tasting, we stopped in at the shop to buy a bottle and some souvenirs before getting back on the bus and returning to Barcelona. On the way back, Lorea told us her abbreviated version of the political situation in Catalunya, her thoughts on the subject, and that she had not participated in the vote. She didn’t agree with the Spanish Government’s actions and thought there should be a referendum, but a proper referendum in which all sides agreed to the terms, and there was campaigning on both sides of the issue (as opposed to only from the “Sí´ camp). To her, there were too many unanswered questions – Would an independent Catalunya be welcomed into the European Union? What currency would they use? What would happen to her boyfriend’s residency permit? She said the Catalunyan officials leading the separatist movement hadn’t answered any such questions.

There was a lot of activity around the Plaça still, when we arrived there at 6:30, in the aftermath of the prior day’s referendum and in anticipation of the general strike that had been called for the next day, in protest of the violent police actions. Knowing that the metro service would be disrupted and that our Sagrada Familia visit had already been called off due to the strike, we decided to go that evening to La Pedrera, or Casa Milà. We had purchased open tickets valid for any day or time, and we had just enough time to get the tour in that evening.

La Pedrera rooftop.

Casa Milà is a very large home and apartment building, which is still used primarily as private apartments. For the tour we were ushered in through the impressive front gates and courtyard and taken by elevator to the famous rooftop. It was certainly a sight to see – with 30 chimneys grouped into sculpture-like mushrooms and helmet, decorated water towers, archways, and multiple levels atop a window-lined attic with wavy surfaces surrounding two courtyards and two light wells. Our next stop was the attic, which contained a museum about Gaudi’s work under an irregular, rib-like system of hundreds of wooden arches. From the museum the tour led us through an apartment with period-decoration. Compared to the confusing-looking floor plan, I thought the apartment was laid out well with large rooms, high ceilings, and plenty of natural light. The tour concluded in the front courtyard, which originally was an entrance to the underground parking – a true novelty for the time the building was constructed.

La Pedrera front courtyard.

I didn’t love La Pedrera as much as I would have hoped to. Somehow I thought we would tour the main home of the owners, but that was not on the tour. In the apartment we saw a video which I thought would be informative, but ended up being merely a slide show set to music featuring historical ads as well as photos of the neighborhood, the house at the time, and the city. I became anxious, thinking there was a lot more to the tour, and wanting to see the actual architecture as opposed to a series of meaningless (to me) slides. I thought it would never end. Just prior to that, in the museum, I missed the audio-guide descriptions of about 75% of the exhibit. The guide had said “now explore the museum…” and I never saw any more audio-guide numbers until the end. In all, I didn’t feel the audio-guide was informative as the one at Casa Battló. Perhaps I was simply tired from a long day, or still upset about the strike and the soccer game, or anxious about fitting this tour in before closing. It was an impressive and interesting place; I just wasn’t in the best of places from which to enjoy it.

La Pedrera gate.

With the tour ending as the house closed, it was late and time for dinner. We decided to walk a few block to a Tapas place that was highly rated. I felt bad about dragging Gywen that far at the end of a long day when we were all tired, but I knew it would be nice to finally sit and eat. We arrived to find the place shuttered and closed – in spite of Goggle’s claim that it would be open at that hour. Disappointed, we turned back and went into one of the first places we saw and had our dinner. We took the metro back to Plaça de Catalunya and walked back to the hotel, where we were happy to climb into bed.