A night in an old hermitage more than 500 years old in the Montserrat mountain

@ElentirENG ES 4·17·2024 · 23:28 0

Montserrat is the most famous mountain in Catalonia and one of the best known in Spain, and an important religious center for centuries.

Tor, a small and isolated town in the Catalan Pyrenees with a dark history
San Román de Sau, the submerged town that reappeared due to the drought in Catalonia

This mountain, located in the province of Barcelona, reaches a height of 720 meters above sea level and is known for the characteristic rounded shapes of its rocks, which are made of conglomerate. It is the work of millennia of erosion.

The history of this mountain is linked to the discovery of an image of the Virgin Mary in the year 880, according to legend. This image of the Virgin of Montserrat is known as the "Moreneta", for being a black Virgin, and since 1881 she has been the patron saint of the Catholic dioceses of Catalonia. This Romanesque image is preserved in the Monastery of Montserrat, founded in the 11th century on that mountain.

The religious importance of this mountain is not limited to the aforementioned monastery. It also includes other small temples, among them the hermitage of Santa Ana, founded in 1498 by Abbot García Jiménez de Cisneros and which was destroyed by the French in 1812 during the Napoleonic invasion of Spain. Today, the remains of this hermitage serve as a mountain refuge. The YouTube channel Monxileros has published an interesting video spending the night in an old hermitage in Montserrat. From the information it gives, it would be the hermitage of Santa Ana (the video is in Spanish, you can activate the automatic English subtitles in the bottom bar of the player):

---

Foto principal: Michael Matloka.