Ola Todas!
I finally know what that means.
I can't begin to share how many things I loved about Spain, but I would like to tell everyone that everything I picked up on this board was very helpful.
The question people have asked me most often has been were my pockets picked. No...but that was due to the vigilance I gained on this site. We were targeted on 3 occasions, but direct eye contact and body wallets let us come through unscathed.
We arrived in Barcelona on Thursday 5/26 about noon. Our best flight option available had routed from Mpls to Chicago to Amsterdam into Barcelona.
We picked up our "EuroCar" rental, a diesel Renault, roomy & very comfy. (but stinky) After that hellacious flight, we were tired but excited to go.
After booking our flights last Feb., we found out that there were no rooms in Barcelona for the dates we would arrive there. This prompted us to use the first 9 days of our 19 days exploring the Basque Country.
My Paul was an Eagle Scout & can he read a map...man-oh-man!
We still got lost and ended up in the center of Barcelona on our way out of town. It was exciting & I wanted to get out & wander around, not Paul. He was growling about a highway & a bed.
We did eventually find the road we needed & drove to a little town named Manresa. After scoping out the town by car, we parked & entered a little place called "Cherries". We asked for directions to a hotel.
(Now I did receive a Spanish language program for Chanukah, and I did try to learn some basic phrases. At 50 yrs. old I seem to forget more each day, so learning a language feels like swimming upstream.)
Of course this nice little town does not receive many tourists, and probably very few US tourists. Everyone turned to look at us. The lady we spoke to must have realized my accented Spanish was horrible & she asked a gentleman seated at his lunch to come over & speak to us because he spoke English. He was so friendly and helpful and gave us directions to "Hotel Pere II".
We thanked him & left, only to go outside to tell each other we didn't understand a word he said & we still had no idea where this hotel was. Something about a bridge...
Manresa is not that big & after finding one hotel that was booked, they directed us to the other one the man had been directing us to, and checked into the "Hotel Pere II".
After checking out the beds, we left & began walking to find this little bar “Cherries” again. My Eagle Scout came through & we had our first Tapas & beer. We wandered around looking & visiting the Cathedral, La Seu (magnificent), the Sant Ignasi’s Cave, & the shops & the bars for several hours; we fell into bed by midnight. Not bad for old people!
We spent Friday morning walking around a bit more, eating sandwiches for breakfast!?! And then left to drive back south a bit to visit Montserrat. This was on my list of things I must see. We took the cable car up from Monistrol, what a fantastic vista! Then from the village of Montserrat we took the funicular up to the summit. We strolled around, listening to all the voices in all the languages. (This is one of my favorite things about traveling.)
Montserrat is home to a statue of the patron saint of Catalonia, La Moreneta, the dark skinned virgin. The statue had been secreted in a cave to protect her from invading forces hundreds of years ago. When the local priest & cohorts tried to remove it & take it to Manresa for placement in a new Cathedral to be built in her honor, many obstacles hindered the movement. The wise clergy finally decided that this was where the Madonna wished to be, & built the Cathedral right up there on the mountain. If you go to the top & face the front (toward the cathedral) & let your eyes wander you will spot several tiny houses, some appear to be chapels. We didn’t go closer, but there were paths marked with approximate walk times. There was a group of French speaking teens sitting at the edge of the precipice eating sandwiches, legs dangling over the edge. I wanted to pull them back to a reasonable safe spot. Paul clamped his hand over my mouth & reminded me my French was rusty.
We ate lunch at the restaurant, wrote a few postcards & decided to go to
Cardona, a Parador & take a chance on an available room.
We found Cardona without a hitch, a lovely drive from Montserrat
They say that by visiting Montserrat you can earn time off from purgatory…well I don’t know about that but we managed to get a room at a Parador on a Friday night on a holiday weekend without a problem. I’d call that a mini-miracle!
Cardona is a beautiful castle, parts of which date from the 2nd century. The castle was built by the Folch dynasty, heir of Charlemagne, and belonged to the most powerful dynasty ruling during the 10th and 17th century.
We had spent a long day climbing, a late night the night before, and we decided to simply enjoy the Parador rather then visit the town. Our room was large, well equipped with all the goodies, spotless and located with a view toward the courtyard, our window surrounded by vines. I made Paul go down to the courtyard & stand beneath the window…”What light through yonder window breaks…”
(I made him take the camera.)
After settling in, we found a seat in the bar with a window. Cardona sits very high on a mount and the view is spectacular. The window faced north, we could see a patchwork of fields, houses with garden plots, the remains of an old Roman bridge, the town and the mountains to the North. A storm cloud was moving in, darkening the whole valley.
I remember sitting there feeling like the castle was ready to do battle with the storm.
We had red wine & little dishes of almonds so good I thought they were macadamias. We sat there for a couple of hours laughing & talking and planning our next move, all the while enjoying a view fit for kings. Hmmm
We ate dinner in the Parador dining room, a very large barrel vaulted room. The table settings were elegant, soft lighting and flowers. We ordered a bottle of wine, Paul ordered the suckling pig and I had the braised lamb shoulder. We both found the meats over salty. This is not unusual as we are very light salt users anyway. But the ambiance was worth the price of admission. After dinner we went back up to the bar & watched the lights in the valley, some lightning up toward the mountains and ordered the best brandy in the house.
The room had shutters on the inside, which we closed. We both had crazy dreams and woke up at 9:30AM. This seemed very late for a couple who like to rise by 6AM at the latest. We wrote it off to the wine and brandy. (Every hotel had shutters & we slept a lot later in Spain then at home).
At breakfast we discussed our dreams & came to the conclusion that the castle was definitely haunted.
Paul & I are both cooks so we tend to be a bit critical of food as a rule, but the breakfast at Cardona was nothing to write home about. Very expensive canned fruit & oily eggs.
Oh well…
The very friendly staff at the front desk called the next Parador on our route to see if there was a possible availability for Sat. evening. (It just so happened that the visit to Montserrat was still in effect and we were able to book a Saturday night at a Parador in the middle of a holiday weekend.)
I consulted with my navigator who consulted the map & we decided to drive through the mountains (as opposed to the highway, which would take us through southern France).
The next stop was to be
Sos del Rey Católico , a former convent. (?)
We left Cardona after breakfast, heading North to Coll de Negro. This drive was beautiful, through rocky gorges and over a dam filled with turquoise water.
From Coll de Negro we turned onto a 12’ wide mountain road that took us 60km up a mountain, barely clinging to the sides of sheer drops into an unknown abyss.
Did I mention I have a problem with heights? I’ve been trying to prove this false all my life. I’ve para-sailed, bungee-jumped, cable car’ed , crossed one of the highest passes in the Swiss Alps, walked across that swinging foot bridge north of Vancouver and looked over the edge at Hoover dam. Nothing prepared me for this ride. At times I had my eyes squeezed shut so tight that I had raccoon marks on my cheeks from my mascara.
When we reached the top (Allah be praised) we were in the clouds. And these are just the foothills of the Pyrenees. We had stopped many times on the way up so I could put my head in a paper bag, and to take some pictures.
We were following a road toward a town named Tremp. We drove up a long way through trees & spectacular scenery, and the top was enveloped in clouds and smelled so clean and fresh, and there were houses along the way, some appeared to be vacation homes. I remarked to Paul that I would not care to run out for milk.
When we began the descent on the other side I thought I would throw-up. Now I was on the outside edge of the car. The views were again spectacular. We drove through the little towns of Boixols & Isona, that seemed to be clinging to the sides of sheer drops into valleys so far below us, that I actually felt like I was flying in a plane. There were ancient castles everywhere., all perched smack on top of the highest point on the hill.
(Frank Lloyd Wright would have choked.)
After finally reaching a regular road we stopped at a little place called Fonda Llarc in Puente de Montanena for tapas & a beer. I needed it. I asked for whiskey but they didn’t know that word.
Has anyone ever noticed that the American whiskey found in bars all over the world is Four Roses?
It was a great little place, terrific sandwiches, cold beer & tables right outside in the sunshine. There is a hostal right next door, and a pensione upstairs.
After lunch we continued our drive to Sols del Rey Catolico.
The diesel engine in this car gave us very good milage, and at .80pst per liter, that was a blessing.
As I am recording this for my journal, it probably has more detail then Madrid Mans readers care for, but it is what it is. I hope you enjoy. I need to go collect my grand-daughter for a visit, and I will write again soon.
[ 05-24-2001: Message edited by: MadridMan ]
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