From Montserrat to Magic Fountain

When Alex started feeling better we found ourselves facing our last couple of days in Barcelona. We packed in as much as we could before we had to jump on the train and head back north to Paris. One of the coolest things we did was take a day trip out of the city to the Mountain of Montserrat.

In Catalan Montserrat means serrated mountain, and it does resemble a jagged old saw blade that would be tossed aside after hard use. A stunningly beautiful natural sight in its own right, it is also home to a Benedictine monastery. Though as a tourist destination it is more than just a monastery now, featuring a hotel and quite good modern art museum. That aside, the monastery is over a thousand years old and has a very storied history, including being mostly leveled by Napoleon in 1812; is still a sight of Christian pilgrimage; and is the home of one of Europe's famous Black Madonnas.

After our day trip we went to another of the famous tourist traps in Barcelona, The magic fountain of Monjuic. We went so Tilia could enjoy the spectacle, all the spraying water with Disney music, but I am a little embarrassed to report that the spectacle ended up being so hallucinatory that I was disarmed by it and it became a little worth seeing (Did I just lose some cred there? Drat.)

And finally I've included a few shots I took from our high speed train ride back to Paris. The scenery along the way is truly spectacular, but I have to say trying to get a picture while traveling at 200 miles per hour is a chore to say the least. After you see something you just have to catch for posterity, raising the camera to your face, then focusing on your subject and composing your frame does happen pretty fast, but when moving so quickly the scenery changes faster than you can complete those steps. Before I would get my camera in focus we would be behind a hedge row or hill, and whatever I wanted to shoot would be long gone before the scenery opened up again. This happened so many times I feel lucky I was even able to get the little I am showing here.

oroboros on 1/25/2016 7:17:06 PM

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