Petersontravels

We decided to take a day trip out of the big city and visit Montserrat, a mountain range west of Barcelona and home to a Benedictine monastery church in perhaps the most beautiful setting you will ever see.

Just outside the church is this statue, made by the same sculptor who made all of the pieces for the Passion Facade of the Sagrada Familia. I love the style.

This place has an interesting history. Way back in 880, the locals claim to have seen light in the mountains and angels singing. These visions and sounds were supposedly coming from a small cave in the mountain. Upon further investigation, religious elders discovered a black Madonna in the cave. They tried to bring it down out of the hills, but it became too heavy for them to carry, so rather than remove the Madonna they built a church in the mountains where the statue resides to this day.

Here is a shot inside the church, which was originally built in the 11th century . The black Madonna is behind the altar. It’s pretty damn small, so you can’t really see it in this photo, but it’s in the bright area in the middle.

I love the design of this organ. It is apparently similar to the organ in the Sagrada Familia, being made by the same person.

This was in one of the side-altars in the nave, and it’s got to be the coolest depiction of the crucifiction I’ve ever seen.

I took this short video so you can see how the eyes follow you….very creepy!

We had some free time on the mountain so we took the fernicular up and then hiked back down.

Some of the best views of Montserrat are from the trail leading back down.

This would have been a great shot we had moved three feet over out of that shadow!

A better view of the monastery and surrounding mountains.

After the Montserrat visit we were taken to a winery (Oller Dl Mas) in the valley below. This winery is housed in a 10th century castle that has been in the same family for 1000 years.

The wines were pretty good. The lunch they served us, not so much. One nice thing is the view looking back towards Montserrat helps explain how it got this name. Montserrat translates to “saw mountain”. This would make a nice rocking chair view!

The next day would be our last in Barcelona and Spain, but we are ready to be home.

After visiting the Park Guell we had tickets for Casa Vicens, a short 15 minute walk from the park. Our tickets were for a specific 20 minute slot, so figured “here we go again, I’m going to be elbowing somebody out of the way before the day is done!” Imagine my surprise when we walked in and we were practically the only ones there!

I asked the lady at the front where the tourists were, and she said “don’t say anything, we don’t want it ruined like the rest of the city”. She further explained that Casa Vicens was a private residence up until 2014, and had just opened as a museum in November 2017, so nobody knows about it yet (particularly not the throngs of self-obsessed “selfie zombies”). Wow…what a welcome surprise! I think there were maybe 20 other people the entire time we were there.

This was Gaudi’s first home as an architecht, so his style was a little more restrained than in later projects. It still has a very distinctive Gaudi style. This is the view from the street.

Manel Vicens was a stockbroker, and he commissioned a young 31-year-old Gaudi to design this as his summer home. It was Gaudi’s first home design, and he took advantage of the opportunity to design something special.

The fence along the front has this palm leaf design since there were palms planted in the garden area. He wanted the fence and the house to mimic the garden area, an idea that showed up in other areas of the house. The top of the fence also appears to make an excellent security system. Maybe somebody should show this design to Trump?

This is the exterior of a covered porch area. Just gorgeous! Not sure what the story is about the Dreamcatcher in the fountain, but it works for me!

On the inside of the porch is this stunning ceiling. More fan palms. It nearly looks like sky filtering through the palms, but that’s just a painting. Really beautiful woodwork as well.

The next 2 photos are of the Smoking Room. Not much for smoking….but still a very cool room! I just love all of the colors. No way I’d let somebody smoke in there though!

This is the ceiling of the Domed Room. This is supposed to be a simple sitting room. Around my house every room not the bedroom is a “sitting room”. I’m not real big on standing around.

The next 2 photos are the Blue Room, where I’m assuming Mr Vicens went when he was sad. Really love the blue colors and the detail work on the ceiling.

Last but not least, the roof area, where Gaudi liked to really ramp up his artistic skills.

Part of the permanent exhibition of the house are lithographs of documents that Gaudi drew up as The Architect. I love his signature. Artistic people always have the best signatures.

This was our last Gaudi themed visit. There is a lot more Gaudi to see, but time is running short on this trip. Next up, Montserrat. It may be a couple of days late, as we fly home tomorrow at zero-dark-thirty, and the internet in this Airbnb has not been cooperating.