Work, then Monserrat

Each afternoon of week two, after class let out, I went to the consultants' office to work. The first day I actually had a Skype call with two professors in England, with whom I'm interested in working on my PhD. After many technical difficulties, we had a very positive and productive call. Then, it was on to a combination of working on the translation of a post-doctoral application and the writing and editing of the script for the model. Because we were working late, I was often "kidnapped" for late dinner. All part of living the Spanish way, right? Truth is, I enjoyed it very much, meeting more fabulous people, walking home at 10 or 11 at night because it's safe and the weather's good. I would move to Barcelona.  

I ended up bailing on the large group dinner on Friday night; I had a paper to critique for a friend, we were headed on an excursion the next day, and I was wiped. It was also Halloween, which is, in an odd way, becoming a catchy thing in Barcelona and I wanted to see what people were up to as I walked home. 

Unfortunately, plans changed. With Friday being Halloween, Saturday was All Saint's Day, and friends advised against going to Girona on the holiday. I wasn't keen, but we decided to go to Montserrat. As one of the consultants was leaving to lead a field school in Rome on Sunday, he had to bail on the day trip in order to finish prepping for his trip. Turns out, Montserrat was a fantastic change.

Except, that this really started the part of the trip that I promised my friend I'd write about, the "almost" trip. We have such a good time together, but traveling together is not our strongest suit, as it turns out.....

If either of us had known anything about Montserrat, we would have made very different travel plans. Thing one: if I'd known more about Barcelona, maybe we would have met at a different place. Thing two, and one that would repeat with disturbing frequency over our trips, maybe then we would not have missed our train. But I digress.

 Nestled in the mountains, the Monastery of Montserrat is otherworldly. Begun in the 9th century, it has grown and changed through the early 1900s. A gothic cathedral, Benedictine monks, and incomparable natural beauty combine with a hotel, shops, and cafes to make a truly interesting little town.

Trains run once an hour from Barcelona, a surprise for my friend. Then the train is an hour. Then there's the connecting cog railway up the mountain. Owing to the holiday, the famed boys' choir was singing at a special time. We missed them. Had we made the original train.... So we decided lunch was in order, and found the fancy restaurant, which was very worth it! A prix fixe lunch for the 100th anniversary. The first round of small plates was cold (salt cod, seafood, ham), the second warm (calamari, croquettes, brochettes). Of course, I went for the fish, which was wonderful. I opted for the cheese for dessert, which was a specialty of the monastery and came with its own little pot of honey. Too much, but incredible. We left way too full. So it was time to explore.

 Beautiful gardens. We explored these for a while, then thought we were getting a little off course.

 We came back down to see the monastery itself, and the cathedral.

 The main buildings link off a little plaza. 

 Catalan artists redid the frieze outside the cathedral in 1900. Inside is the famous La Moreneta, the Black Virgin. There are multiple stories of her founding, but she is the patroness of Catalonia. I declined to wait in line to walk behind the altar to see her.

 So I lit a candle for my cousin, and we went out to enjoy the scenery. We skipped the museum in the interests of time, even though it's supposed to be very good. We heard there were paths....

Which we found by taking a cable car further up Sant Joan.

And were there paths! We could see people all over these bizarre peaks that once were under the sea. We wandered for about an hour, exploring, sitting and staring out at the mountains and listening to the bird calls, bemoaning our ill fate at not being better prepared.

Clearly Montserrat required many more hours than we had available; we had to be careful not to miss the last cable car back into the town, the cog railway bag to the train station, and therefore our scheduled train back to the city. We had dinner plans with the other consultant, after all. But we did get to watch the lit up cog train coming down the mountain while we waited for our train, and that was spectacular. Another reason to go back.