Day Twenty Five (TR)
David has the day off. What would I like to do, he asks. I have several ideas:
Picasso Museum
Dali Museum
Montserrat
The Picasso Museum is one hour away, and the Dali Museum is four hours away. Plus I am getting museum overdoses now, so that leaves us with Montserrat. This place is basically a monestary built on the side of a steep mountain. After a little probing of the people who sell tickets for the tram dealy to the top, we found out where the trailhead was to climb the mountain on foot (a much longer, less expensive way to get there). The hike was nice and took us up higher and higher, until we could see a lot of the rugged, undeveloped part of Catalunya. It was surprisingly desolate and looked a lot like Central Utah. There were several Catalunya flags on the way.
Well we got there eventually and it was really cool. There were several buildings besides the monestary, including a museum, and it was unexpectedly crowded with people who rode the tram (we only saw two others on the trail). Inside the ornately decorated basilica was a famous landmark--La Virgen Negra, the Black Virgin. I guess some monk saw a vision of a Black Mary and someone sculpted this in honor of it. There was a big long line of people who wanted to touch the orb she held; we waited in line but felt no compulsion to touch the orb, at least not sufficient to outweigh our concerns for hygeine.
It turns out there was a museum as well, which was kind of cool. A lot of it was boring, but we did get to see a couple Monets, and some Picassos from his "I Am So Famous That I No Longer Care What My Art Looks Like" phase.
Museums, as you might have noticed, are tiring. I think I took a lunch break if not a public nap after every museum visit on this whole trip. This time it was the former, and we ate these cool egg baguettes that David's abuela had made for us. Then down the mountain. On the way back to David's house he took me to this castle that overlooked all of Barcelona where some mad general had a standoff back in the olden days. It just closing when we got there, so we entertained ourselves with the climbable artillery.
I love Barcelona.
Picasso Museum
Dali Museum
Montserrat
The Picasso Museum is one hour away, and the Dali Museum is four hours away. Plus I am getting museum overdoses now, so that leaves us with Montserrat. This place is basically a monestary built on the side of a steep mountain. After a little probing of the people who sell tickets for the tram dealy to the top, we found out where the trailhead was to climb the mountain on foot (a much longer, less expensive way to get there). The hike was nice and took us up higher and higher, until we could see a lot of the rugged, undeveloped part of Catalunya. It was surprisingly desolate and looked a lot like Central Utah. There were several Catalunya flags on the way.
Well we got there eventually and it was really cool. There were several buildings besides the monestary, including a museum, and it was unexpectedly crowded with people who rode the tram (we only saw two others on the trail). Inside the ornately decorated basilica was a famous landmark--La Virgen Negra, the Black Virgin. I guess some monk saw a vision of a Black Mary and someone sculpted this in honor of it. There was a big long line of people who wanted to touch the orb she held; we waited in line but felt no compulsion to touch the orb, at least not sufficient to outweigh our concerns for hygeine.
It turns out there was a museum as well, which was kind of cool. A lot of it was boring, but we did get to see a couple Monets, and some Picassos from his "I Am So Famous That I No Longer Care What My Art Looks Like" phase.
Museums, as you might have noticed, are tiring. I think I took a lunch break if not a public nap after every museum visit on this whole trip. This time it was the former, and we ate these cool egg baguettes that David's abuela had made for us. Then down the mountain. On the way back to David's house he took me to this castle that overlooked all of Barcelona where some mad general had a standoff back in the olden days. It just closing when we got there, so we entertained ourselves with the climbable artillery.
I love Barcelona.
posted by T.R. at 9:54 PM
2 Comments:
This brings back a set of memmories. I was fortunate enough to spend christmas eve at monserrat while all of the monks came out and did the midnight mass entirely in chanted latin. Sometime I will read you the journal entry. Next year when Muriel and I go to Barcelona, I will definately stop by for you.
how can a person not love barcelona? Where did you go to church? In Hospitalet?
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