On our last day in Barcelona, 21 August 2005, we left our room about 9:30 a.m. We had croissants and freshly squeezed orange juice at a cafe near the hotel.
We caught the train to Montserrat, a monastery in the mountains 25 miles north of Barcelona. After about an hour on the train we switched to a rack railway to climb to the 727-meter elevation of the monastery.
From there we rode a funicular to 970 meters (over 3,000 feet). We were chilly at this highest point. The view was stupendous and it was a perfect day for photos. It was a very clear, sunny day with few clouds. We could see the distant Pyrennes mountains that stand at the border of Spain and France.
After we returned to the monastery below, we ate a very good lunch at a hotel restaurant.
We waited in line for nearly an hour to walk past La Moreneta, an interesting life-size statue of a dark-skinned Madonna and Child. The origin of this sculpture is uncertain, though there are varying explanations. It is probably about one thousand years old, but one legend claims St. Luke carved it and St. Peter took it to Barcelona. The religious veneration of such objects is peculiar to us non-Catholics.
After a 3-hour visit to Montserrat, we returned to Barcelona. We stopped for an hour at our hotel to begin packing. About 6 o'clock we went to La Rambla and began looking for supper, wandering the back streets. We enjoyed our last insalata caprese and ate mediocre pastas. We ate ice cream before returning to the hotel to finish packing for our return to the States.
Plaça d'Espanya
The global economy and the Internet has made the human race share more in common than ever. Mannerisms seem to have become universal (except the Italians are still full of life and wonderfully passionate in a special way, we were delighted to see). We were a bit disappointed to see that generally the Europeans are dressing (or undressing) just like Americans, as well as wearing tattoos and piercing their bodies in similar fashion. When we lived in Italy in the mid-1980's, there seemed to be more differences between cultures. Now everyone looks and acts about the same, particularly those under 30. And we two understand enough of several languages now that we feel more connected than we used to.
After so many days on vacation, we were eager to go home to our more familiar lives. We were ready for everything to be "American" again.
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