Day 5 – Barcelona Day & Montserrat

June 23, 2019 – Today we got up early and I made us scrambled eggs with shredded bacon. We were going to have a long day for our tour to Montserrat Mountain and Monastery.  We knew we wanted to see Montserrat, so we booked a tour.

The history of Montserrat is fascinating and started in 880 when a small group of shepherd children saw a bright light descending from the sky in the Montserrat Mountains “Serrated Mountains”.  In the same moment the children heard angels singing and the music filled their hearts with a radiant joy.

Overwhelmed by the experience the children ran home to frantically recall the experience to their parents.  The parents were skeptical but knew their children were trustworthy and honest and so they went to where the children had experienced the visions to see if they could see what all the fuss was about.

For the whole month following the first visitation the parents were also witness to the same heavenly experiences and were left with only one conclusion…  The visions were a sign from God.

A local vicar was brought to the scene and witnessed the same experiences as the children and parents.  The visions occurred in the same location in a cave on Montserrat Mountain.  When this cave was explored by the religious elders of the community, they found an image of the Virgin Mary.  And from that moment on the cave became a holy sanctuary for religious pilgrims.

According to Catholic tradition, the Black Madonna (aka Black Virgin of Montserrat, Our Lady of Montserrat, La Moreneta, St Mary of Montserrat) was carved by St. Luke in 50 AD and was later brought to Spain. She is called the Black Madonna due to the aged varnish that was previously applied to her.

Today, the site of the visions has been marked by a Holy Grotto on the mountain.  You can walk to the Holy Grotto and see first-hand where these events took place.  We did not have time for this due to the time restraint of the tour being only 6 hours and it is quite the hike.  The Holy Grotto has now been ordained a holy place and is visited by pilgrims and curious onlookers from all over the world.

We took an hour-long bus ride to Montserrat in a very comfy air-conditioned bus.  Our tour guide, Camelia was an adorable young Spanish girl who was a fun, high-energy girl.  After she gave us the history of the site and Monastery, an overview of the grounds and things to do here, she cut us loose to explore.  There is much to see in a little time and we wanted to make sure to see the highlights.

Our first stop was to the funicular of Saint Joan which took us up to the top of the mountain.  There are spectacular views and we were able to do a quick hike to some of the higher areas to capture some of the beauty in pics. Wayne hiked up to the top of a small peak to grab a few shots and I stayed down to get a pic of him from below.

Next, we rode the funicular back down to go to the cathedral to visit the Black Madonna but there was a mass in session and we did not want to disrespect those that were worshipping by taking photos. We decided to hike up to the Cross of Saint Michael. By this time, it was getting hot and the hike was rough, but we made it to the top where the cross was, and it was a beautiful site with a view overlooking the Monastery grounds.

We still had about an hour and a half before we had to meet back with our tour group so we hurried back down the mountain to head to the cathedral to see the Black Madonna.  The line to get up close and personal was very long, so instead of missing the tour bus back to Barcelona, we opted to view her from afar and take pics by zooming in.

We still had about 35 minutes to kill before we met the bus so we took the time to buy a souvenir, use the bathrooms and have an ice-cold beer.

We have lots of videos this time so here is our first YouTube video of our trip to Montserrat:

When we returned from Montserrat it was siesta time so we tried to keep our schedule… those that know me well know how much I LOVE naps…I could get used to this siesta thing!

We were woken up by the sounds of much commotion in the square and lots of firecrackers and sky rockets. So, we decided to go out and check it out for ourselves. We happened upon a parade of different groups of drummers…the first drummer group was wearing devil masks and about every 20 feet one of the marchers was carrying a roman candle that was going off….there were about 10 guys with the roman candles…then suddenly there were GIANT people marching – a man and a woman dressed in turn of the century clothing. They were walking along in the parade and dancing together… I SWEAR we weren’t on LSD or anything…It was so interesting and puzzling.   We thought it might be a demonstration of some sort???

Here are a few short videos of the festivities. 

Finally, after following these drummers and giant people around from square to square and fireworks, firecrackers, huge bonfires and skyrockets going off everywhere, I tried my Español skills out and approached a family to ask, “ What is this?”

I was told that this is the Festival of Saint Joan, who is the Patron Saint of Gràcia. This festival is known as the Catalan Festival of Fire and all of Barcelona celebrates. It corresponds with the Summer Solstice, the longest day of the year and the beginning of the summer holiday for children.   The Sant Joan celebrations in Barcelona are particularly wild and are also loaded with Catalan national significance.  It is likely that the origins of the festival are Pagan.  The importance of fire, witches and herbal remedies in the traditional celebrations suggest that Sant Joan is a pre-Christian festival that has been hijacked by the church to coincide with the birth of Saint John.

The building of bonfires on the Summer Solstice is typical throughout Northern Europe but it is unclear when the tradition became associated with Sant Joan in Barcelona. If front of Saint Joan church in Gràcia, there was a huge bonfire. People were light off fireworks, partying, writing wishes on paper and throwing them into the fire and eating the traditional cake/bread “Coco’s” which I spoke of earlier.

This party and the non-stop fireworks throughout the city went on literally non-stop from 4 pm until 6:30 am the following morning.  

(SIDE NOTE TO THE HEGARDTS…PLEASE TELL JOAN HEGARDT THAT WE PARTIED IN BARCELONA ON THE FESTIVAL OF SAINT JOAN AND THOUGHT ABOUT HER….WE ALWAYS KNEW SHE WAS A PARTY ANIMAL!)

We are adding a new feature to the website today that is pretty cool and a little unnerving at the same time. When we use Google Maps to navigate around, it provides a timeline of where we went. You can generally see our travels for today in the photo below.

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