A Day on the Mountain of Montserrat

Getting to the Abbey of Santa Maria de Montserrat has an element of drama. We started with a metro ride to the train station, then a train to the cable car station, and finally a ride up the mountain in the little yellow box.

It affords a good view. “Montserrat” is, of course, “serrated mountain” and its name seems apt enough.
There are also funiculars and a cog railway. Apparently, there is also a road. Whether that affords more or less of a sense of adventure we couldn’t say without checking it out. It does seem like cheating, though.

The Benedictine monastery was founded in the 10th century and still has over 150 monks in residence. We didn’t see any.

The Abbey has played an important role in the religious and political life of Catalonia. In more recent times, the monks were persecuted during the Civil War by Republican forces and then also persecuted by Franco given their ties to Catalan separatists and left wing politics and habit of providing sanctuary.

In a basilica partly built into the mountain, the Virgin of Montserrat is the principle attraction for both the curious and the faithful.

(Thank you to Wikipedia for the image.)
She is a likely-Romanesque statue of Mary holding an infant Jesus with blackened skin, known as the Black Madonna or La Moreneta. Various legends are attached to the statue, including that it was carved during the early days of the Church in Jerusalem and spirited away for safe keeping in the 8th century. Even in the middle of October there was a long line as people made their way along a passageway that led behind the altar to an elevated area overlooking the interior of the church. There the Madonna was behind glass, except for her hand which can be touched or kissed in veneration.
After mailing a postcard, it was down the mountain and back to Barcelona.

 

Miro, Picasso & the Essence of Catalonia

It is that white star in a blue triangle that changes the Catalan flag into a separatist flag. You see them often, as it had been our intent to visit the two regions of Spain that don’t really want to be a part of Spain: Catalonia and the Basque Country.
Barcelona has long been the vibrant heart of Catalonia. It’s currently one of the “it” cities of Europe, full of energy and personality. It was that cultural energy that drew 15 year old Pablo Picasso to Barcelona in 1896 from his native Malaga and kept him anchored to Spain as he maintained residences in both Barcelona and Paris until his self-exile in 1939 when Francisco Franco prevailed in the Spanish Civil War (remember Picasso’s 1937 painting of Guernica?). From exile he donated hundreds of his early works and some works of his final years (The Pigeons series) to a dedicated Picasso museum in Barcelona which Franco forbade to bear Picasso’s name. Picasso never saw the museum because he died before Franco met his own end. Our visit (no photographs allowed) was somewhat disappointing. The early works clearly show his gifts, but the collection somehow seemed as if it were comprised of all the paintings that didn’t sell. So, it was interesting, but not inspiring.
We went up to the Monjuic neighborhood to visit the Joan Miro Foundation out of a sense of obligation to check out another museum dedicated to another acknowledged modern master, even though we had low expectations. We had a different kind of experience. We liked it. This 1919 painting (Miro was 26) of the village of Mont-roig captures Miro’s interest in primitivism, his Catalan roots, nature and the objects of everyday life.
From there on the canvas continues to loosen.
Miro often thought of his art as “anti-painting,” although he also said: “I make no distinction between painting and poetry.”

He was fascinated with body language and graffiti. He was also influenced by Japanese art and the approach to calligraphy characterized by rapid execution following a period of intense concentration. He visited Japan a couple of times, as well as the United States where he met with the abstract expressionists, including Pollack.

The beauty of the Miro Foundation museum is that it actually does provide such as wide perspective on his work that you begin to have the illusion that you understand him.

From the Miro Foundation we walked over to the National Art Museum of Catalonia with its commanding view of the city (hi, Catherine!).

Among other things, the Catalan museum houses the preeminent collection of Romanesque Art in Europe, featuring murals and panels from rural Catalan churches from the 11th – 13th centuries. In the early twentieth century, a mass purchase of the art was being orchestrated by American institutions. The Catalan government stepped in and organized a conservation effort to preserve them for Catalonia.

It’s again a very impressive collection that, makes you reassess how you feel about an entire epoque in art.

Our heads filled with art, we headed down towards the Placa d’Espanya
And the heart of Barcelona.

 

The Modernist Masterpieces of Barcelona

It was thanks to a street demonstration (no one could tell us why) that we had a view of two of the modernist masterpieces of Barcelona, unobstructed by trucks, buses or cars whizzing by.

Nearby our apartment in the Eixample neighborhood, on Passeig de Gracia, two masterpieces of Antoni Gaudi (on the right) and Joseph Puig i Cadafalch stand side by side. The ubiquitous “A’s” in the Puig window ornamentation commemorates his client, the Amattler family. Two doors down, but difficult to photograph, is a gorgeous house by Lluis Domenech i Montaner (otherwise, well-represented, below).

We toured Gaudi’s La Pedrera, an apartment building whose current tenants must tolerate large crowds gathering out front and touring parts of the building and the roof, where functional components continue to get the Gaudi treatment.

From the roof, Gaudi’s most famous work, La Sagrada Familia, can be seen under construction (as always) in the distance.

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The exterior of the cathedral has a few artistically restrained features.

But, not many. The exterior is exuberant beyond description and a reminder of how we got the English word “gaudy.”

The interior, on the other hand, is an intensely spiritual space, even though packed with hundreds of awestruck tourists craning their necks, transfixed by the magic.

The soaring verticality of the space fulfills Gaudi’s vision of the interior as being like a woods to invite prayer, introspection and the taking of the Eucharist. Both inside and out, every detail has a meaning, every architectural feature a liturgical or religious significance. The central tower represents Jesus, four towers surrounding it represent the gospels, when completed (projected for 2026, nearly 150 years after construction commenced) there will be 12 towers representing each of the apostles. You can’t help but feel that Gaudi has created a temple without equal in reflecting the magnificent nature of God. It is no still small voice. It is the heavens opening wide in their glory.

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Barcelona’s temple of music is the Palao de la Musica. We took a short taxi ride there from our apartment for a performance of flamenco music and dance by a troupe from Malaga.

The Palau de la Musica was designed by Lluis Domenech i Montaner, another master of Catalan Modernisme.

As with most of the modernist architecture we saw, the ornamention on each surface (for instance, each pillar or column) is unique and designs are not repeated.

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Inside the hall, performers should be happy that the lights are turned down. Otherwise, patrons would be distracted by the dizzying array of what there is to see. Fortunately, the performance was quite good. The low wooden platform accentuated the percussion from the performers’ feet.

Back in 1401 the Barcelona’s Consell de Cent (“Council of One Hundred”) merged six hospitals into one to improve the free care provided to the city’s poor as the Hospital de la Santa Creu. By the turn of the 20th century, the facilities had become inadequate and a wealthy banker (Pau Gil) stepped up with a very large donation and a commission to Lluis Domenech i Montaner to design a new hospital to modern standards. His only demand was that the hospital be renamed to honor his patron saint, Saint Paul, so that it is now the Hospital de la Santa Creu i Sant Pau. Of course, the architect did frequently include the donor’s initials as decoration. We didn’t mind.

The hospital is comprised of many individual buildings linked by tunnels. The buildings are absolutely beautiful.

They have also been restored in an ongoing project.

By the turn of the 21st century, it was clear that the hospital was again inadequate. It had been designated a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1997, but it was time to move. In fact, the hospital continued to serve as a hospital until 2008 when a new hospital opened that had been built on a portion of the same large tract of land originally set aside.

So, now the hospital is a museum with spaces that can also be rented out for functions. It’s new on the tourist circuit, but well worth a visit, as is Barcelona for its architectural treasures alone.

A Dali Day

Salvador Dali had a special fondness for his birthplace of Figueras and a seaside resort, nestled like a forgotten land protected from the outside by precipitous drops along the edges of innumerable switchbacks, the small city of Cadaques where he made his home with his beloved Gala. After driving all the way to Cadaques the previous day, we backtracked to Figueras to look for him at the Dali Theater and Museum, a project founded and created by the man himself.

You can find Dali by looking for eggs.

The “and Theater” was not an error. Our Day with Dali led to respect for his genius as a self-promoting provocateur who was also exceptionally talented. His art is massively entertaining with layers of symbols and meaning. And, by the way, he’s buried in a very traditional crypt beneath the theater, being a devout Catholic.

Confused? Taking in the works Dali chose for his museum is mind boggling. They exhibit an incredibly restless exuberance that can’t seem to be either contained or adequately expressed. The place fairly bursts apart and is packed with curious visitors (even in October) as they make their way, trying to comprehend Dali.

And then there’s more. Jewelry, including a pulsating heart.

So it was back over the mountains to find the heart of the matter, where Salvador and Gala called home,

A comfortable one-bedroom place by the sea,

Where he left us plenty of eggs,

And enigmatic images,

To ponder.

After we left the Dali home, we explored the coast

And then walked down into Cadaques in the midst of a torrential downpour

To take a look at the route we drove on first coming into town. And, yes, the street is completely submerged in the surf and the red Audi drove through it.

 

Passing Through Girona

People have been passing through Girona for thousands of years: the Iberians, the Romans, the Visigoths, the Moors, and then a tussle back and forth with the entry of Charlemagne in 785 when he made it one of the 14 original counties of Catalonia. Of course, the Moors came crashing back in 793 and it was one siege and sack after another until 1492 when, in addition to expelling the Moors from Spain, the substantial Jewish community of Catalonia was also expelled, although the Jewish quarter of Girona would continue to be called the Jewish quarter. Now, of course, Catalan and Spanish are both spoken and many Catalans would like to sever ties with Spain. This is where we began our exploration of northern Spain.

The old city is a delightful area to wander.

The Cathedral and Cloister were the site of a Roman forum and of a mosque before being dedicated as a cathedral. Indeed, Roman fortifications remain.

The highlight of the Treasury is the 11th Century Tapestry of Creation of couched needlework in wool. Christ Pantocrator (in Eastern iconography) is in the center, surrounded by various themes, including those of the creation and of the seasons.

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The primary purpose of our stop over in Girona was, of course, lunch.

Properly fortified, we explored the Roman ruins and old city walls to enjoy the views before hitting the road again.

Chasing Schooners at Provincetown

The Great Provincetown Schooner Regatta’s Long Point Schooner & Yacht Race pits schooners that have raced from Gloucester to Provincetown earlier in the week against local boats. During the week, rides are available on the schooners, including during races.

Passengers get their safety briefing on board the Hindu, a 75′ schooner built in 1925. A schooner, of course, is a two (or more) masted sailing vessel where the foremast is usually shorter than the main.

The Hindu joins other boats in motoring out into the harbor.

On a relatively windless day, the schooners and other boats mill about waiting for the beginning of the race.

We opted for spots on a whale watching boat that would shadow the race, a boat billed as an opportunity to “paint the race.”
Philip and Catherine set up quickly in the stern, while photographers roamed along the railings.
 

With sails aloft but nothing to power them, most of the action seemed to be happening behind the easels.

The race course was moved a few times to try to find some wind and the starting time delayed. Finally, the starting line was moved up to Truro.
And . . . They’re Off!

Looks like the Spirit of South Carolina (thanks for the flag, guys) gaining on the (hmm, I don’t know) and followed by the (gee, it’s hard to tell them apart, isn’t it?).

Finally, the consensus of the boat’s passengers was that we should go look for some whales. That worked nicely. We saw a humpback, a few finbacks and a mola mola which, for you uninitiated, is an ocean sunfish. It’s a big round fish that weighs in at about 400 pounds and 8 feet across and swims on its side at the surface waving its fin above the water. Weird and wonderful.

 

A Week in May in Maine

Maine is where people from Cape Cod go to escape the crowds. Of course, if you head out to Mount Desert Island and Acadia National Park – legendary retreat of the Rockefellers, Fords and Vanderbilts – you are bound for summertime gridlock. The secret is to visit in the month of May.
We opted for a fenced-in yard with a view, having two rambunctious dogs along with us. We were traveling with our friends Catherine and Philip. Ken decided to join us for the weekend. This is Bass Harbor.
It’s very scenic – perfect for plein air painters (or photographers who aren’t embarrassed to use Photoshop).
On other side of the harbor is the Bass Harbor Lighthouse, an iconic image of the National Park. Catherine ensconced herself well up into the rocks where she couldn’t be pestered by the photographer. Wise choice, no doubt.
In the meantime, Amanda and Jim took the dogs down the road to Ship’s Harbor Trail. Acadia is one of the few National Parks allowing leashed dogs on most hiking trails. That’s our dog Momo, on the right, and her friend Brioche.
It certainly packs in a lot of scenery.
And, the dogs were on their best behavior.
The next day, we pried the brushes from the painters’ hands and all headed to Wonderland Trail with the dogs. Philip spotted the squirrel. We were hoping for a moose, but were told that it’s not really suitable habitat for them or for bears. The moose are partial to freshwater wetlands.
This pine looked like something from a Japanese garden.
But, it’s the views of rocky shores that make Arcadia special.
That, and the close up magic of tidal pools.
And the things you can do with rocks.
 
And friends.
Cadillac Mountain is the big-deal mountain on an island with plenty of terrain. Thanks to the early “rusticators” (wealthy people with a yearning for nature) there has long been a road up to something close to the summit and paved walking paths with jaw dropping views.
Nope, not even this last one was photoshopped (which even your faithful photographer finds hard to believe).
Another unique feature of Acadia is the network of carriage roads, over fifty miles of them, that attracts horse and carriage fans from around the world. We have the Rockefeller family to thank for them, as well as for the existence of the park. None of the park was purchased by the government. It is all donated land, which accounts for the Swiss cheese appearance on a map. By the way, the stones lining the roadway are coping stones which John D. Jr. insisted be cut irregularly to look natural, and not as blocks. It does look beautiful.
Although our tour focused on the bridges built by John D. Rockefeller, Jr. (known as “Junior” to one and all), our guide provided a nice overview of the history of Acadia and the people involved in putting it all together, especially the Rockefeller family. Being good Baptists, the Rockefellers avoided the rampant hedonism of the wealthy crowd hanging out in Bar Harbor and created their estate in Seal Harbor, where they still maintain a home. The Rockefellers also, we’re told, were modest about their wealth and the sons growing up had no idea how wealthy they were. Apparently, three of the boys had summer jobs and were hitch hiking home. When the man giving them the ride expressed surprise that they didn’t have their own cars, he was met with “What? We’re not Vanderbilts, you know!”
We took a tour focused on the bridges Mr. Rockefeller built, painstakingly and beautifully. He obsessed over the smallest details to create a perfect place for riding a carriage in nature, carefully placing trees to shade the horses after more strenuous climbs.
And creating gate houses to control entry to and from the carriage roads from the automobile roads he also laid out. The Rockefeller property remains private property, but is open to the public, complementing the National Park. Dogs are allowed. Bicycles are not (because they are more likely to spook the horses). And, you can tell when you are going back and forth from the Park to the Rockefeller property because the latter roads are still covered with crushed pink granite, which the Park Service cannot afford, opting instead for ordinary gray gravel.
We enjoyed Ship’s Harbor Trail so much, we talked Catherine and Philip into seeing it with us and were then surprised at how much more you can see on a second look. The small bit of fog also helped to create a different feel to the scenery.
An Auto Museum? Well, yes, and Jim couldn’t get enough of the one with the round windshield. We ended up at the Seal Cove Auto Museum because our landlady confused Seal Cove with Seal Harbor in providing directions to a Rockefeller property where dogs are permitted to run off-leash (yes, we pamper our dogs). Making no headway in finding any signage or likely place for a Rockefeller property, we stopped at the museum to ask for directions. The men at the Auto Museum had no idea what we were talking about, but phoned around, discovering for us the error of Cove versus Harbor.
As long as we were in Seal Cove, we decided to explore a little and drive down some likely roads along the water. The first road we turned into shortly had a nice wharf down to the right and a handful of lobster boats at anchor. Catherine remembered that one of her son-in-law’s best friends ran a lobster boat called the Lady Lauren and thought it would be funny to stumble upon it. So, we pulled out some binoculars and – it was the Lady Lauren.
 
When they heard we were staying less than ten minutes away, Matt and Heather invited us to stop by to say hello and see their place.
Matt’s a fourth-generation lobsterman and shares the operation with his father and his uncle. He runs 500 traps himself. The family entered into a program restricting use of the land in perpetuity for fishing, as land prices are distorted by the popularity of second-homes, much as on the Cape.
Waiting for us were eight lobsters, floating in the water off the dock.
They were superb. We also learned the trick to telling that a lobster is done cooking. The long feelers coming off the front of their heads should pull right out. Perfection. And, yes, we ate two lobsters each.
As for the Rockefeller property in Seal Harbor, this is it. It wasn’t particularly easy to find and there is no signage to direct you to it, just signage indicating it is private property open to the public. And no bicycles. This is the boat house.
We understand that David Rockefeller comes down with a dog on occasion. He has also been spotted recently driving a carriage on the carriage roads. He’s now just a little over 100.
Dogs are welcome to go swimming.
Even the crazy ones.
And that’s how it should be.

 

And Back to Bergen

The final days’ passage down the coast to Bergen brought our only truly rough weather of the journey, with rain and choppy seas. This persisted as we drove around to take a look at the city, the steep-roofed warehouses along the water being the famous Bryggen or Hanseatic commercial buildings.

King Haakon Haakonsson had a less obstructed view of the fjord when he built his hall around 1250. It’s believed to have been designed by the architect to Henry III of England, one of Haakon’s allies, and it remains the largest secular medieval building in Norway.

The Bryggen are a ramshackle affair, built around 1702 and the outpost of the Hanseatic league at Bergen. It was largely a self-governing and protected enclave from which the league controlled the trade in, among other things, herring and cod, until the Dutch and others developed the muscle to break their monopoly. The league was a confederation of merchant guilds from member cities and essentially controlled trade in the area of the Baltic and North Sea and into the interior of Northern Europe from around 1400 to 1800.

The oldest building in Bergen is St. Mary’s church, from the 12th century.

The Fantoft stave church was originally built around 1150, then moved twice to preserve it. However, it was destroyed by arson in 1992 by members of the early Norwegian black metal scene, purportedly in retaliation for building a church on sacred pagan land. It was reconstructed a few years later and is now protected by a chain link fence.

Completely unique to Bergen are the Buecorps or Archery Brigades, boy-run marching units organized at the neighborhood level. As you can see, they just march around in the midst of traffic. They seem to have been around from the 18th and 19th centuries, becoming formally organized around 1850, and can also do charitable work.

Credit Where Credit’s Due

Thanks to the experts who accompanied our group:

http://www.amazon.com/John-Haywood/e/B001IXNYQ0

http://www.ianridpath.com/

 

Back to Trondheim

Yes, it’s Olav Trygvasson again, this time favored by the early morning light. As the Hurtigruten express ships make their way up and down the coast, almost every port is visited twice, although at greatly different times of day.

The Royal Family maintains a residence in Trondheim, the ancient capital and the country’s third largest city. We joined our group for a very chilly 7:30 walk about the city over sidewalks thick with ice.

We walked over to Nidaros Cathedral again and through the arch to the Bishop’s Residence.

Then over the Nidelva River on the Old Town Bridge (from 1861) through the Gate of Fortune to take a look at the world’s first and only bicycle lift that ascends a hill on the other side of the river. Alas, it was closed for the winter, but here’s the manufacturer’s website. http://trampe.no/en/home

The bridge afforded a great view of some of the warehouses lining the river, now converted to apartments.

Out in the fjord itself is Monk’s Island, a storied piece of rock serving as a Viking execution ground, a monastery, a fortress, a prison, a WWII anti-aircraft installation, and most recently a place for locals to go for a swim in summer.

 

The Northern Lights

Mission Accomplished. We had wanted to see the coastline and fjords, learn more about the Vikings, and experience the Northern Lights, the Aurora Borealis. Not a particularly flattering picture, relying on an iPhone to illuminate Amanda’s face, without which her head looked like a flaming red ball.

The Northern Lights occur directly overhead and form great bands and arcs and ribbons and curtains across the entire sky when you are in the region where they occur in the ionosphere. That region is like an enormous narrow floppy donut plopped on top of the world. You are outside of the region if you are too far south or too far north. It’s like two gigantic rings of fire, one in each polar region, north and south, because the auroras are the solar wind captured and directed by the earth’s magnetic field and exciting the oxygen and nitrogen in the ionosphere at the altitudes in which satellites circle the world.

While the Northern Lights can be seen at lower latitudes, they are seen on the horizon, not spanning the entire sky. Whenever you see the Northern Lights with the naked eye they, to our surprise, don’t look like this. The shapes and diaphanous appearance are true to nature, but the color is not. The strong green color is an artifact of photography and videography because cameras are more sensitive to the slight greenish cast that is inherent in the Aurora. When you see the Aurora the color is indistinguishable from the color of clouds or of light pollution. You determine that it is, in fact, an Aurora by photographing it. If it is light pollution it will look orangish, if it’s a display of Aurora it will be green.

The purple color is also an indication of strong solar wind activity, for the key to a wonderful display is a lot of solar wind and a clear night. We were fortunate. It was a bit of a challenge to capture reasonable photographs of the Northern Lights aboard a ship. The star squiggles are evidence of both the movement of the ship and the strong winds buffeting us on deck in the open at the stern, behind the funnel. Had the weather cooperated before we exited the magic donut, we would have as a last attempt (for you photographers) dramatically increased the ISO in order to shorten the exposure time.