Category Archives: travel

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Montserrat Monastery

P1010346Montserrat is a Benedictine monastery near Barcelona. It houses a Black Madonna statue that dates to the 12th century. The figure is above the altar in the basilica of the monastery. In her honour Gregorian chants are sung daily at noon. Many tourists travel here only to see the statue. The Black Madonna is the patron saint of Catalonia.

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Salou, Spain

Salou has been a welcome break from the fast pace/high energy of the crowds when touring. We are enjoying sun and sand in this little town that welcomes families to its beaches. In the photos John is trying to point out that his glass contains only water, whereas in my photo I’m holding a pitcher of Sangria😄

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What Are the Odds Addendum

We continued to be open to whatever lay ahead of us. We saw a monument rising high above the desert at Murcia so we took a side trip to view it. It was the Castle of Monteagudo that dates back to the eleventh century, originally occupied by the Moors. In 1926 a 14 metre high statue of Christ was built atop the castle. This is what drew our eye from a distance.

We arrived in Valencia late in the afternoon with enough time to enjoy the cooling sun before we walked through the Arts and Science Centre area that the locals justifiably are so proud of.(see photos attached to previous post)

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What Are The Odds

Through our journey we have found there are opportunities for experiences you don’t expect and cannot prepare for. Encounters that leave you marvelling at life. We had two of such occurrences on our longest day of travel. (1) We left Nerja under hazy skies heavy with Mediterranean moisture. Clouds stacked liked cotton balls witnessed our departure. (Natalie Matsui, the sky reminded me of your Popcorn Cloud portrayal in the Alberta Skies project.) Imagine our conversation as we settled ourselves for the impending six hour drive. “Hey look, there’s another greenhouse.” We had seen a few earlier throughout Portugal and Spain. The landscape we were driving through was arid, desert reminding us of Nevada or Arizona. Soon we began to see more greenhouses and thought they must be effective for growing fruits and vegetables in this unforgiving environment. As we saw more greenhouses we joked about someone getting rich by convincing his neighbors to buy plastic for greenhouses. Soon the horizon was completely plastic – WTF! We felt like we had stumbled upon some sort of dystopian science experiment. Google informed us we were viewing the greenhouses of Almeria. Apparently this is one of the most recognizable places on the planet when viewed from a satellite lens. It seemed like a good idea may have gone terribly wrong – or not. I’m sure there are many points of view about this but as we observed a valley without a single square inch of green or rock visible, only the steeple of a church and rooftops of a village rising above the sea of plastic, our conversation faded to silence….

(2)still reeling from what we had inadvertently witnessed, I received an email that made me laugh out loud. I hope I can convey the uncanny events that lead to this outburst. Three couples unknown to each other are travelling in Spain in May of 2017. Couple #1, Janet and Bryan, meet couple #2, Chris and Nonie, in Seville. Several days later couple #1 meets couple #3, John and Mary, in Arcos. Couple #3 meets couple #2 in Tangier and again in Gibraltar. Several days later couple #2 chance upon couple #1 in Granada. They determine that they each met couple #3 and Janet sends Mary an email. I feel like it’s an episode from Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, “what are the odds?!”