SPAIN 2026 (1)

 

Our first night in Madrid we walked up Calle Hortaleza and found a church of St Anthony, patron saint of animals. The church frontis has a statue of Anthony with his trademark pig. 

The next day we arrived in Manresa to stay with our friend Gabriela.

 Manresa has a long history as a mediaeval town and boasts one of the three great 14th century gothic cathedrals of Catalonia, the others being in Barcelona and La Palma, Majorca.

Manresa’s greatest claim to fame is as the city where a Basque ex-soldier named Iñigo spent 11 months in 1522, several of them living in a limestone cave with a view of Monserrat.

 He had set off from his home on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land and got as far as Monserrat, where he spent some time at the monastery. He then diverted to Manresa to be treated in a private hospital for a leg wound suffered at the battle of Pamplona in 1521.

 Now known as St Ignatius of Loyola (1491-1556), he experienced several religious trances in Manresa and was inspired to found the Jesuit order (some years later in Paris). The cave is now incorporated into a huge baroque building. Several other sites are associated with him, including a Roman (?) bridge.

 In the mediaeval centre is a well which was the site of his first miracle: in the early 1600s, an unfortunate girl allowed her step-mother’s chicken to fall into the well. She prayed to Ignatius and the chook was restored to life! 

Manresa is on the Cardener river, which in the 19^th and 20^th centuries powered a large number of cotton mills, now abandoned. As early as the 14^th century, however, it was found during a severe drought that it was inadequate as the water supply for a city of 2,000 “hearths”, not least because the water had to be pumped (or carried) uphill. The town councillors therefore devised a project to build a canal 26 km long from the Llobregat river to the north. They obtained royal permission from Pedro III and started work, but before long the Bishop of Vic, whose land was crossed by the proposed line of the canal, objected, as it threatened the income from his watermills. A stalemate lasted for some months, but on 21^st February 1345 a miraculous ray of light from nearby Monserrat rested on the altar of the Manresa church of Carmen.

This miracle convinced the bishop, who withdrew his objection and the canal was completed. (So much for the legend; historically, the bishop never withdrew, and the canal was completed only after his death.) To achieve such a long canal with a fall of only 10 m, the master builder, Guillem Catà, probably had recourse to Arab engineering knowledge and instruments. The canal ends in a small reservoir in what is now a park above Manresa.

On Easter Sunday we travelled the 20 km to Monserrat by train, going up the rack-and-pinion line from the village to the monastery.

It was heaving and we didn’t even try to get into the monastery church. The place has a well-developed tourism industry, including a hotel built in the 19^th century to accommodate well-heeled pilgrims. We went for a walk up the hill and ticked Monserrat off with relief.

On the Monday we set off with Gabriela’s friend Kim (Joaquim) to find the local traditional dancing associated with the season. We were unsuccessful, but visited a couple of interesting villages and churches and ended up having lunch in the park at the end of the canal!