I am staying in a monastery. Well, maybe it’s really called a sanctuary. Hard to tell with the language barrier. Either way, I find it delightfully ironic, since I am not exactly a believer. I don’t think anyone really cares about that. As long as the tourist euro is spent, they do not care where it comes from. It seem to make no difference whether it is an unblighted euro, handed over by a righteous, pure hearted, Christian minded, chaste and godly little soul or a tarnished euro, handed over by... well, um… by me.
Maybe they whip it through a quick blessing ceremony to clean it up. Who’s to say the church doesn’t launder money….
But there are no monks. I was quite looking forward to sitting here of an evening and listening to eerie singing and chanting resounding over the mountains. Kind of like a live rendition of Gregorian Chants. No such luck. The closest we have come is the bells, which ring an interesting pattern for the evening mass. Or service – whatever it is called. I haven’t even seen bishopy sort of folk, gliding serenely down the ancient stone corridors in beautiful gowns. Hell! (Um, I mean “heck” of course.) Not even a black gowned priest furtively following tight-bottomed choir boys down the corridors. Nothing! No monks, no priests, no chanting and no choir boys. (They are on holiday, according to a notice on the notice board – hey, maybe that explains the absence of the priests…) I haven’t even had to fend off an attempt at religious conversion. There have certainly been no lively theosophical debates. I am feeling almost swindled on the religious dogma side of things.
Apart from the grievous let down on the religious dogma side of things, it is really quite nice here. The sanctuary is in the middle of the mountains of Lluc. Because of the altitude we have somewhat escaped the baking heat that plagues this island everywhere else. And the mosquitoes!!!!! There are no mosquitoes! Maybe there is a god up here… This could possibly be the one thing that might effect my conversion. I have not been bitten once since I got here. Well, not by a mosquito anyway.
Monastery of Lluc from the hills above it:
Closeup of the Clock:
We are staying on the 2nd floor of the sanctuary. The walls are thick stone. We look out onto the courtyard, which is filled by a gorgeous magnolia tree. There are thick iron bars over the windows. They make me want to reach my arms through them and wave them madly, shouting to the tourists below “Help me! I am being held here against my will!”
Yesterday we wandered through the church. The first room is disastrously cluttered with paintings, frescoes and other evidence of religious devotion. Alarmingly cluttered as far as I was concerned. Very Baroque. Faintly redeemed by two simple granite fonts. I have a horror of clutter. I must say, it did have a very beautiful ceiling thingy. I’m not sure what you call those domey, turrety bits on the tops of churches. Cuppola? That might be the Italian word. Anyway, on the inside they usually have a bunch of paintings and then some windows to let in the light. The church had one of those that I found quite beautiful.
Gorgeous ceiling:
I was generally much more taken with the back room. A simple affair, furnished with plain wooden pews and an abundance of lights. Lights with iron light shades that have patterns cut out of them. Lovely.
Back room and lights:
The sanctuary is very pretty, but I must say that I am somewhat more of a fan of the 'church of nature" (that is such a twee phrase that I find myself compelled to do the inverted comma thing) and find more evidence of godly activity in the splendours of nature, such as the view of the sunrise from our campsite of two nights ago, and the mountains and the sky and the clouds that we saw on the drive here.
Sunrise over the mountains of Lluc:
Lake at the Gorg Blau:
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