Today we left the Pyrenees after 6, six!! days of walking. We are heading east over the next 2 days to Girona to drop off our car. We have timed things well, with rain predicted in the mountains over the next few days, and finer weather in the east. I am hoping for a few days at least of sandal weather before heading home to winter.
We had about 4 hours of driving today via La Seu d’Urgell, close to Andorra, then nearly to France at the Tossa Pass, (M cursing the TomTom as it took us on another twisty, narrow road) then through Ripoll to Camprodon. We broke the journey with some strategic stops to view various Romanesque edifices.
We stopped at La Seu d’Urgell to look at its Cathedral, started in 1166 and never actually finished! It had a fabulous, dark atmosphere, a product of the massive walls required to hold up the barrel vaulted ceiling. We agreed that we really like the scale and proportions of Romanesque architecture which seems less impersonal that your typical Baroque. The cloister was pleasant, with some interesting beastly capitals, and the museum was extensive. I now know far more about 10th century ecclesiastical symbology of the Apocalypse, than I need to from the Beatus manuscript held here; including the seven seals and the seven cups of wrath, and the seven headed beast with seven crowns and ten horns, the lady on the white horse, etc – just hope Dan Brown never gets his hands on this or he will inflict another tome on us!
Next we took a look at the Monastery in Ripoll, founded in 888 by Guifre el Pelos (Wilfred the Hairy to you and me, who was the first Count of Barcelona and the founding father of Catalonia), famous for its carved portal, which is now under a glass enclosure to protect it from further damage and erosion. This is an impressive carving, showing Biblical scenes from the Old Testament. Must admit that I obviously don’t know my scripture very well, apart from the obvious Adam and Eve, Tower of Babel, Noah, etc.
The actual church was mostly destroyed by an earthquake in the 1400s, but most of the cloister survived. It is a lovely two story building, with garden and fountain. I wonder, could I include one in our house?
Lastly, Sant Joan de les Abadesses, a small market town with Romanesque bridge and two Romanesque churches, one founded as a Monastery by good old Guifre. This had a small, peaceful cloister, quite plain, but a lovely Church, which we both very much admired. It was the most atmospheric of the churches that we have visited so far by a long way.
Our home for the night was Camprodon, in a beautiful Pyrenean valley very close to the French border. The weather was fine that night, so in proper Spanish style, we took an evening walk to enjoy the views of, you guessed it, a Romanesque bridge, then off to a very pleasant restaurant for some traditional Catalan cooking including rabbit and duck, with some free cava and soup thrown in.
Hard to believe that we will be home soon.
Hey Mike & Jen, I know this might sound weird but we believe that we have met you on our travels. Perhaps it was in Torla?
ReplyDeleteWe have been checking out your blog and we must say that we are very impressed. It's really great.
We have particularly been following your posts about Torla as we visited there too. We have even written a guide, which you can check out here: http://hitchhikershandbook.com/country-guides/spain-2/torla/ . We would love your feedback and any tips, information, advice that you might have would be warmly appreciated.
Keep up the good work!
Ania & Jon