Finally Some Sanity

Spain is treating me well. Just as I was starting to think that school was going to bore me into a pile of mush, spring break came around and saved me from impending insanity. My mom is currently with me, and we spent the first few days pouring over every minute inch of Barcelona. I finally figured out where I get the stamina that I have as a tourist. The first day she arrived, she slept while I was in class, but then we walked around the city for almost 8 hours, only stopping to have a drink occasionally and dinner. We visited three of the four main neighborhoods of the city, shopped, had beers at 4 different establishments, and enjoyed a tapas dinner on Passeig de Gracia, the main drag in town. I kept asking if she was tired, to which she replied, “Absolutely not! Let’s go see something else!” and would briskly walk off in the direction of something new. We have been doing things non-stop every day, including our “easy” days, during which we have perused Park Guell and Montjuic, enjoying picnics of blue cheese, baguette, tomatoes, and wine. I have never enjoyed this city so much.
We decided to take a small trip outside of the city for a new adventure, and decided upon Montserrat, a holy mountain about an hour’s train ride from Barcelona. We arrived in its formidable shadow with open mouths and breathless. The mountain is a compilation of gigantic rock spires jutting out of the farmlands and valleys, with a train that winds slowly and perilously up the side. We made it halfway up to a village tucked away in the rocks, and then took a funicular (a type of train that scales nearly vertical mountainsides using a pulley-like system) to the very top of the mountain. There is no wonder the place is a pilgrimage site. The view from the top is enough to inspire someone to drop to their knees, and the silence is rivaled only by the sound of the basilica bells gonging down below in the ravine. Apparently hermit-monks used to live in caves within the mountain, and from where we stood we could actually see some of them still carved into the rock. We had a picnic of steak and cheese at the top with the sun shining un-obscured on our sweaty faces. I took a rock with me to keep as a souvenir, hoping that some day I will be able to hand it to someone and tell them it was plucked from the foot of the sky.
We visited the basilica in the village and paid homage to a very renowned statue within, lit candles for our intentions, had coffee at a local restaurant, and headed back down. I could have spent three or more days exploring that mountain for all there was to see and experience. Someday in my life I will return.
After spending some time in Barcelona, we decided to venture even further out of town to a small pueblo called Cardona. We stayed in a Parador, which is a chain of hotels all over Spain that have been converted from old places that used to lodge pilgrims making their way around the country. This one was a castle/monastery/fortress in years past. Parts of it were as old as the year 8 B.C. We spent most of our day and into the night exploring every nook and cranny that the place offered, making conjectures as to which parts were older, which were newer, and what rooms were used for what purposes. One of the most interesting parts was the Tower of La Minyona, a gigantic stone guard tower with a prison-like room inside of it. In ancient times, the lord of the castle locked his eldest daughter inside the tower because she fell in love with a Moor, the people who at the time were ransacking Spain. He refused to let her out until she renounced her love for him, but she refused. She died in the tower, abandoned by her father and without getting to experience the love she died defending. The story is historical fact, but there is a legend that her ghost still haunts the tower and the western corner of the top floor in the castle. Mom and I went ghost hunting, but saw nothing. I was too afraid to go near the door of the tower at night, and she wouldn’t do it alone, so we settled for looking at it from the courtyard below.
We returned to Barcelona today, and are attempting to sleep a bit before flying across the country tomorrow to Santiago de Compostela, where we will be staying in another Parador, an old monastery in the ancient part of the city. I’m really hoping there are no ghosts there either, but we’ll see.
Thank god for spring break.