Thursday 06th July 2006 11:30:00 PM DAY 3: Barcelona and Montserrat (Near Barcelona) Pilgrimage: A journey to a sacred place. To the local Catholics, Montserrat is a sacred place to them; to the Barcelonian football fans, what is more sacred than the Camp Nou? As Vicky and Kit decided to hit for the beach today, I decided to do some hiking and went to Montserrat myself. On the way to the train station in Placa D' Espanya I came across a local trade fair called BBB (Bread & Butter Barcelona)... well, as I didn't have time and the ticket to get in, so I wonder whether they would be trading marmalade and margarine as well as bread & butter! 
There are two means to get to Montserrat: Now this would be an excellent oppotunity to compare the Spanish Cable Car System to our "proudly presents" Ngong Ping 360 (昂坪360), so there was no reason why I didn't take the cable car instead. After "repetitive trials" (ie 2) of the Montserrat Aeri (cable car), though it was much much older, at least the service was smooth, on-time and did not stop even when the wind blowed. :P To be honest, this cable car journey was one of the steepest climbs I have ever had! well... at least compared to Ocean Park's. (Actually the vertical climb near the end of the journey reminded me of a scene in James Bond's For Your Eyes Only where the basket (and the people inside) was lift up to the monastery high above a vertical cliff) 
Montserrat is famous for 3 things: Well it seemed that the choirboys were on once-a-year school holidays in July and they were replaced by a not-so-professional British choir which I also missed because the performance time was changed to 12:00 in July. Another disappointment was the monastery looked too touristy. I didn't see any black hooded Benedictine monks walking around or chanting prayers, but instead waves and waves of tourists of various nations and school kids. (Sorry no one from Hong Kong bothered to come up.. I only saw some Japanese girls) 
Ignoring the disappointments, Montserrat and the monastery still gave me a sense of sacredness and tranquility. At least the air was a lot cooler on the mountain than the boiling hot humid atmosphere down in Barcelona. The statue of Black Virgin was placed behind the altar of the Basilica. (Free admission) Pilgrims had to line up outside the Basilica just to wait to go and see the statue, and to touch the wooden orb that Mary held. (The orb was the only part of the statue that was exposed to public. The rest of the statue was enclosed in a glass container) Legends said whoever touched the orb would get the blessing from Our Mother....... and of course I touched it too. 
Lunch was taken in a cafeteria in the Montserrat where you "ordered" (in my case "pointed") your food at the counter and paid on the exit (just like a university canteen) In my case I had the very salty Butifarra (sausage) and Creme de Catalana (like the French Creme Brulee). It turned out the potatoes were the best! (EUR 9.1) 
There was an option to take the rack railway further up to the top of the mountain to do some hiking but I decided to rush off to another pilgrimage: Camp Nou. 
If you are a soccer fan and if you watch Spanish League you would certainly know what FC Barcelona is. (Barca as the local would call it) The headquarter of this football club is in the stadium Camp Nou. You must really have a true heart to go on a pilgrimage as the road was never easy. After getting off from the nearest metro station, I had to walk around 10 minutes to reach the stadium, then discovered that the entrance was on the other side of this massive stadium, so I had to walk for another 5-10 minutes before reaching the main entrance..... mind you, you must be a real fan to walk all that far under 38+ C degrees just to visit a football stadium. Under the influence of Captain Tsubasa (足球小將), the Camp Nou was not quite what it seemed to be. (and the author had researched! *sigh*) In order to have a real look of a true stadium, I parted 11 Euros for a self-guided tour around the stadium. Inside you had the priviledge of taking photos with Ronaldinho (full-size cardboard figure -_-" ....... I'd rather prefer japanese blow-up maiden dolls if u ask me), visited the chapel (I must say it must be for the players' last-minute prayers) and the museum. The highlight of the musuem was a chance to take a photo while holding the UEFA champions league 2006 trophy cup replica! As it turned out that I looked more like a worker of a housemoving company than a football team captain holding the championship's trophy, I decided to save my 10 Euros for the photo. My last mission of the trip was the "crazy" shopping of Barca stuff in the official store... but having stuffed myself with those souvenirs, it turned out that the "official" hawker store right outside the entrance of the stadium was also selling exactly the same stuff (with the same holographic sticker) with much cheaper prices! 
Agreed to meet Vicky and her friends for dinner at 21:00 so I quickly rushed back to hotel for a shower. It was also the first time I experienced the "quickness" of the Barcelona metro. First, the entire line 3 (green line) was shut down (ie no entry was allowed through the ticket gates), then re-opened after a short while (luckily I did not go away); then waited for 10 minutes before a train came; then stopped at each station in between, with the waiting time in a station's platform greater than the travelling time between each station. Becoz of that, I could just barely make it on time at the meeting place when I realized all the others arrived much later! (so why the rush?) Dinner was eaten at a local pub-like restaurant (La Esquinica) and it was a tapas night. Alex ordered many dishes of tapas of different varieties and I only remembered I ate a lot of pig's blood and organs... another interesting thing was that you could only pay to the waiter who served you but not to the other waiters... they actually rejected (?) you when you asked for the bill. (EUR 53.35 for 5 ppl) Having said good-bye to them (All four of them would be heading off to Pamplona for the bull-running festival on the next day) I headed back to the hotel at 23:00. Travelling at night was actually not as bad as ppl said. I believe there were pickpockets everywhere, but I hadn't seen any robberies, physical assaults or bag snatching in Barcelona yet! Thank God! No world cup today! My foot prints: Placa d' Espanya, Montserrat, Camp Nou Stay: Opera Hostal, Barcelona (EUR 43, single room) P.S. Oh btw, BBB was really a trade show for contemporary top genre fashion! |