Stranded on a Mountaintop

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Today we've booked a tour to Montserrat, which is a mountaintop monastery about forty kilometres inland from Barcelona. Our guide, who's name in Arne, tells us that the bus can't leave yet because we need to wait for some people who are running late. He says that they missed the tour completely yesterday, also because they were late. They get on the bus. Issy says that I shouldn't suggest to them that maybe they should consider buying an alarm clock, no matter how tempting that might seem.

Arne tells us that Barcelona was founded by the Romans in 300 BC, and they then ruled here for 800 years. We pass the remains of the original Roman city wall. He shows us a statue of Christopher Columbus on top of a large column. He says that it's supposed to show him pointing towards America, although he's actually pointing towards Africa. He assures us that this isn't a mistake - America is actually behind the waterfront, and the people responsible for building the statue thought it might look a bit odd for a famous sea captain to be pointing inland.

Montserrat is apparently the highest mountain in the area and its monastery was founded in the eleventh century. The mountain is very steep, and is covered in spectacular rocky outcrops. We turn off the highway and start the very long and windy drive to the top. Arne tells us that he thinks our tour is cursed. The weather's been very hot in the last few days, and there's a chance that some of the walking tracks near the monastery will be closed today because of the fear of bushfires. Also the operators of the funicular railway that's supposed to take us from the end of the road to the very top of the mountain have been on strike, so we may not be able to actually reach the summit. Arne says that the rock on the mountain is very weak and there are rock falls all the time. He says that stainless steel nets have been installed along parts of the road to stop small rocks from crushing passing traffic. He doesn't say a lot about how the nets go at catching bigger rocks. I'm suddenly feeling very nervous.

We reach the end of the road. The operators of the funicular railway are still on strike so sure enough we can't go right to the summit. The good news however is that the walking tracks are all open, as it rained here overnight. Arne says we'll have a lot of free time up here to explore the place for ourselves. He tells us that we need to meet back at the designated meeting point at 12.30pm.

We visit the monastery's massive church and then move onto the adjacent art museum which includes works by Renoir, Monet, Dali, Caravaggio and Picasso. People would be knocking the doors down to see these works if they were on show in Australia, but here they're on display to a handful of tourists in a tiny museum in a monastery out in the middle of nowhere.

We decide that we have just enough time to walk to the cross of Saint Michael lookout, which we can see from the monastery. The views of the mountain from the track to the cross are stunning. We get back to the meeting point a couple of minutes early, but nobody else from the group seems to be around. We walk around thinking that maybe we've misunderstood where we're supposed to meet, but there's still no sign of anyone from our group. We now start to think that we must have misunderstood the time that we were supposed to meet. We walk back to where the bus dropped us off, but it's not there, and it's now nearly one o'clock. We come to the stark realisation that the bus has left without us. I'd always wondered how it would all end. Now I know - stranded on the top of a mountain in the middle of nowhere in Spain.

We ring the tour company. They tell us that they will try to ring our guide, and then ring us back. We wait a long time for the call. Eventually the phone rings. It's Arne, and he tells us that the bus will be back to pick us up shortly. A few minutes later we see him walking towards us looking very sheepish. He's extremely apologetic. We find out from others in the group that he thought that everyone was back at meeting point early, so he decided that the group could leave, and it was only when the tour company rang him after getting our call that he realised that he'd miscounted. They tell us that he turned very pale when he discovered that he'd left us behind. The bus was already halfway back to the highway, and the road was too windy for it to turn around until it had nearly reached the bottom.

We get some tapas for lunch including the now mandatory serving of patatas bravas. Issy tells me that I'm addicted to these; I think she's probably right.

We kick off the evening with a visit to the Parc de la Ciutadella which is a large park near the middle of Barcelona. Half the city seems to be exercising here - rowers on a lake, joggers and people doing martial arts and yoga. We walk through a hive of activity up the large avenue known as the Passeig de Lluis Companys to the Arc de Triomf. Issy says that it looks like the citizens of Barcelona are more or less permanently out and about, and only go home to eat and sleep. I'm not sure they even go home to eat. There seem to be lots of restaurants here and they all seem to be full most of the time.

We move on to the very large Picasso Museum. Picasso must have been a very busy man. There must be at least a thousand of his works here, and I'm fairly sure this isn't the only place on the planet where his works are displayed. The first exhibition we see is his graphic "156 etchings", most of which include close ups of vaginas. Issy asks me what I think was going on in his head when he did these. I think I've probably got a rough idea. We move on to look at some of his paintings. The earlier pieces look quite traditional, but we then start to see people with square heads and other objects which I struggle to recognise. He might have been a creative genius, but this doesn't seem to have extended to the titles of his works - I think even I could have come up with something better than "Woman from Behind", and "View out the Window". Whilst these mightn't be particularly imaginative they do prove quite useful in helping me work out roughly what's supposed to be going on in the works with the square heads.

We chose a seafood restaurant for dinner and decide that we will order paella. We saw a police van next to the restaurant as we walked in. We then see it leave shortly after we arrive, and before it gets all the way out of its parking spot a mass of African street vendors stampedes along the walkway outside the restaurant, pushing and shoving each other out of the way to get prime positions to display their wares. The waiter tells us that this happens every night. They're not really allowed to be here, but the police always leave at 9.30pm sharp, and the vendors all have their stalls set up a few minutes later.

The paella is magnificent. Issy again orders sangria. The waiter asks her whether she wants it with red wine or kava. I thought that kava was the drink they give you in Fiji that tastes like mud from the bottom of a river, but the waiter tells us that it's local champagne; it's very nice. I try to say "how are you" to the waiter in Spanish, which must be close to the most basic question it's possible to ask. He corrects my pronunciation. I'm shattered. If I can't even get that right what hope have I got with anything more complicated. I decide that I must try harder.

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Comments

[COG]

great photos.