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| (I went to Montserrat after visiting Ripoll--most terrifying drive of my life, but so worth it.) |
I've been in Barcelona! It was a long travel day to get here from Granada, but it's been really good to get some much-needed rest and a couple of days of cloister-analysis-free relaxation. The cloisters that I have visited actually haven't been in the city of Barcelona--they've been out in the surrounding mountains, which was been such a treat for me. I haven't driven in the mountains in a very long time, and it's something I'm used to doing a lot when I'm at home. (Although I have to say that having a rental car in the city of Barcelona was absolutely awful and I would not recommend it unless one is going outside of the city of Barcelona. I am absurdly relieved to have that rental car out of my hands again.)
The two of the three monasteries I visited (Santa Maria de Poblet and Santa Maria des Santes Creus) were Cistercian, and the last one (Santa Maria de Ripoll) was Benedictine. Santa Maria de Ripoll was really beautiful, but I was especially interested in the Cistercian examples, because a lot of Dominican architecture has roots in Cistercian architecture, apparently. One of the most interesting features of all three Cistercian cloisters I saw (one monastery had two cloisters) was the fountain house. All three of them had a fountain enclosed in a pavilion on the side of the cloister adjacent to the refectory. In most cases, this fountain could be accessed both from the inside of the cloister and from the cloister walk, and would have been used not only for washing up before meals (although that was definitely a main use for it) but also likely for things like laundry, which would then have been laid out to dry in the cloister. (At least, so says one of my sources. I'm going to need to do a little more research there.)
If you've been paying close attention to this blog, you may remember that when I visited the Couvent des Jacobins in Toulouse, an early example of a Dominican cloister, I found the remains of a fountain house. And there's the Cistercian influence! (Although that well house was on a corner, whereas the Cistercian ones are usually on one side.)
The first cloister I visited, the main/processional cloister of Santa Maria des Santes Creus, was one of the most beautiful Gothic cloisters I've ever seen (also the first Gothic cloister in Aragon) but under massive amounts of construction, such that everything in the garden area was dug up except for four or five orange trees. Oh, and I only had access to one side. So I didn't do a ton of analysis, but I did really appreciate the actual architecture of it.
Santa Maria des Santes Creus also has another, less formal and less polished, cloister that was built at the same time, although it's hypothesized that this was the "lay" cloister. (Which would make sense, given both that the King's Apartments open off of it, and that the connecting piece between the two cloisters is the parlour--the place where monks would meet with people from outside the enclosure.) It's been somewhat "let go"...there are weeds and ivy and bare earth everywhere...but still has a very strong structural component with the cypresses. (I'm becoming more and more intrigued by cypresses, specifically as a symbol of God and a connection between Earth and Heaven.)
The cloister of Santa Maria de Poblet was again fascinating in terms of its fountain house, and this one was actually accessible to me, which I much appreciated, but it was frustrating in terms of its excessivly eclectic planting style. It had a four-square bed divison, which I did appreciate in terms of its traditionalism in cloister design, but whoever is in charge of the gardens had apparently decided that within that framework, they could plant whatever they wanted. And while I'm not wholesale against eclectic planting styles for cloisters, there needs, in my opinion, to be a good reason for it, and as far as I could tell, here there wasn't. (It was, after all, functioning as a museum. I am a lot more forgiving and/or supportive of eclectic cloister plantings if they exist in cloisters that are being used by a community, but this wasn't one of those.) However, my more honest side as a scholar is forced to admit that part of the reason that eclecting cloister planting plans bother me is that they require a lot more time and effort for me in terms of recording, mapping, and analysis, and I was very hangry at the time. So, my final thoughts here TBD. I may revise my opinion.
The last monastery & cloister, Santa Maria de Ripoll, was the most symmetrical Romanesque double decker cloister I have yet come across, and very satisfying on that account. It also is the only cloister I've come across that had bird netting stretched across the top of--something I can understand the impetus behind, but which somewhat ruins the mood. However, the plantings were gratifyingly simple and lovely, with the highlight being the Rose of Sharon around the fountain, a plant I hadn't encountered in a cloister before.
Last of all, just a few thoughts on my time in Spain as it's drawing to a close! I've really loved Spain. The landscape is beautiful, the food is delicious, and the cloisters are fascinating. (The weather, on the other hand, could be improved upon, but I am here in high summer, so I don't think I'm allowed to complain about that too loudly.)
One of the new things I did in Spain that I didn't do in France (at least, not yet) and probably won't do in Italy (although we'll see) is take taxis. There were several places I needed to go (cloisters and accommodations) that weren't accessible by public transit and were much too far to walk (especially in 100+ degree heat), and there wasn't any Uber coverage (that's how I know I'm really out of my comfort zone, lol) so I had to actually walk up to a taxi and ask for where I wanted to go which was really scary the first time, and also the first time I waited at a taxi stand when there were no visible taxis (although one did show up, and pretty quickly) but overall, through bad Spanish skills and demonstrating addresses on Google Maps, I got everywhere I wanted to go.
One of my favourite things about Spain has been the granizada/o. Granizada is made in a very similar machine to a slushy maker in the US, but it's slightly thicker grained than a typical slushy, and a lot less sweet--the lemon flavour often is actually quite bitter, because (I think) they include some of the peel. In other words, it's my new favourite dessert, and I'm really sad that I'm heading places where it's probably a lot less common! (On the other hand, though, I'm heading to the land of gelato, which I also am a big fan of.)
I wasn't at all prepared for the fact that in Barcelona, they speak Catalan. (They speak Spanish, too, but a lot of the signs are just in Catalan.) If I'm not quite fluent in Spanish, I am almost hopeless in Catalan, which feels to me like all the worst parts of French and Spanish combined, lol. I think it's very cool that the region has its own language in addition to Spanish (and that it survived the attempts to erradicate it) but I don't love trying to navigate its usage.
One of the things that I've not enjoyed about Spain is that most of the larger churches (cathedrals, basilicas, and the more famous churches) actually charge admission for entry. Granted, some of them do let you in for free if you want to pray, but usually only to a small part of the church where the Blessed Sacrament chapel is. This is totally different from almost everywhere else I've been--the US, the UK (for Catholic churches, at least), France, Austria, Poland--where church admission is always free. And it's not that I begrudge them the money (it's usually only like 5-10 euro) nor that I don't want to contribute to the preservation of these churches. But something about charging admission for a church just feels very wrong to me, and I get a little grumpy about it.
To end on a happy note...I tried Spanish gazpacho on Thursday, at my mom's insistence ("you're in Spain! You can't not get gazpacho!") and it tasted just like the gazpacho that my mom has made for years. That's at least one thing I won't have to miss when I get home. :)
See you next week, from Italy!
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