Day 4 - Tuesday - Montserrat

We headed out around noon to Montserrat Monastario from Plaça d'Espanya, a 1-hour train ride from Barcelona. The place is AWESOME - it is amazing how, in the middle of the mountains, you find all this grandeur.

For C, this wasn't a sightseeing trip as much as a spiritual one. Having been educated by the Jesuits, she is in awe of the influence this place had on St. Ignatius de Loyola. In fact, he wrote the Spiritual Exercises (while in nearby Manresa) and incorporated the traditional teaching of Montserrat.

It's hard to put into words what this place is about, other than when you get there, you know you are in Holy Ground. We visited the sanctuary of La Moreneta, the patron saint of Catalunya. When C was little, she and her mother used to light candles in the church whenever we went, so she did the same thing.

A pleasant discovery was a replica of the St. Ignatius sword. Now, another story: born Íñigo López de Loyola in 1491, Ignatius was a total lady's man, a player and a soldier from a noble family. He was wounded in a battle in Pamplona and went to Manresa to recuperate. Without drugs to numb the pain, the poor chap started reading and introspecting, and since there were no girly or sports magazines around, he read about the life of the saints and the "Imitation of Christ" by Thomas à Kempis (1380-1471). Then his spiritual conversion, blah, blah, blah... and one of the most poignant pictures C remembers is of Ignatius offering his sword to Our Lady of Montserrat. In fact, that same image is engraved in her college ring. So yes, that sword replica was a pleasant surprise.


(The Basilica, La Morenita, and Via Crucis)

We got back to Barcelona around dusk and debated whether we should do Inopia today or just hang around. We opted for the 2nd and went to La Rambla, hoping we could get some cenar from La Boqueria, but alas, the food stalls were already closed. We ended up in this place called Attic right on the promenade. Rule #27 in eating out: when the menu is printed in 5 different languages, the food probably isn't very good.

For starters, we had bread with pureed tomato, croquetas, and crema escarmarlan (crawfish in mini baguette with some sort of cream sauce), and of course some sangria.

C's main course was tasty - veal medallon with pureed potato and truffled sauce, while K got some new agey version of seafood paella.

Well, this wasn't one of our best meals, but we did enjoy walking under the Christmas lights this balmy Barcelona evening.

For a night cap, K insisted on going to another place on her list: Cacao Sampaka, a chocolate place with some really weird concoctions like anchovies with chocolates and coco with saffron. It is co-owned by Albert Adria, the owner of Inopia, younger brother of Ferran, and pastry chef at el Bulli. K ordered the chocolate sampler and the cold coco with saffron and orange drink. The waitress gave her a surprised look and even brought her a shot glas to try it first because "it's different". Of course, it's saffron. It was interesting and tasty so she proceeded with the full drink.

That "balmy Barcelona evening" deteriorated into rainy and cold by the time we walked back to the hotel. Time to call it a day.