Torres Winery, Montserrat, and Mount Tibidabo

Ok, so this weekend we did a lot. On Saturday was the organized tour of the winery and Montserrat. I thought that the winery was in Montserrat and that it was just a winery tour that we happened to be doing in Montserrat, but it turns out that isn't the case. The winery was pretty far from there, but since Montserrat was different it didn't matter.

The winery was the Miguel Torres Winery, who make Torres wine that is apparently pretty well-known in Spain and worldwide. The King of Spain (who doesn't work at Pizza Pizza) even went to commemorate their 125th anniversary. Anyway, we toured their vineyards in a tram and then there were some sort of creepy, sort of Disney-like videos that we watched on the tram. Then there was another video we watched in a theater about the people in the Torres family, the wines they make and the awards they've won. Afterwards we tasted one of their white wines (it was really good!) and then they dropped us in the gift shop. Overall, it was similar to an alcoholic Disneyworld ride.

the main building of the winery

us in the tram!

some of the grape vines

vats that they use for making wine

After these pictures my camera died, so the rest are all coming from Lindsay at the winery and Stephanie at Montserrat. Anyway, they explained to us how different wines are made:
1. white wine grapes are immediately separated between the juice part and the skin and such. it ferments for only a few days/weeks/months and then is bottled and sold pretty quickly.
2. red wine grapes ferment for a little while with the skin and such--that's where the red color comes from. then they ferment/age again for a long time without the skin, and then they bottle and age it again for anywhere from 6 months to years and years.
3. rose wine is when they use red grapes but only let them ferment with the skin for 24-48 hours. then its the same as white wine.

So it was fun and informative!

After the winery we went to lunch, where they served us paella. I haven't had paella before, but when I saw/ate it I was reminded of something I learned at Tulane freshman year: paella and jambalaya are more or less the same thing. When the Spanish got to New Orleans, they didn't have saffron or the other necessary spices, so they substituted New Orleanian spices and vegetables and called it jambalaya. And I can't lie, either--I like jambalaya better. But I'm glad I tried paella, and I would probably order it again.






















Then we went to Montserrat, which as the name could imply, is a mountain. But at the top of the mountain are beautiful views and a very old monastery. There isn't much more to say about it, but here are some pictures:

whatever a Catholic sanctuary is called, this is it

 The monastery looked really old, but I'm pretty sure they said most of it was destroyed in the civil war in 1939 (that whole Franco thing). So it was rebuilt/restored. But I tried to find info online (they were out of brochures in English and Castillian--regular Spanish) and it all said the monastery dated back to the 11th or 12th century.

 Not sure who this guy is, but we were hoping the view would come out in the background of the window. When its bigger it kind of does.

After Montserrat, we went back to the campus. But Sunday four of us decided to go to Mount Tibidabo.

"I was just outside Barcelona hiking in the foothills of Mount Tibidabo. I was at the end of this path and I came to a clearing and there was a lake, very secluded. And there were tall trees all around. It was dead silent. Gorgeous. And across the lake I saw…a beautiful woman…bathing herself…but she was crying…"

Ok, so that didn't happen to me.  But upon hearing that Mount Tibidabo was a real place, I knew I had to go. (If you don't know what I'm talking about, here's the link). That, and I read online that it was pretty cool. So four of us went, two of us who were excited because of said Friends quote. After two trains and a bus we got to this clearing that looked pretty disappointing.

Luckily we noticed that there was a cable car we were supposed to take to the top. So after eating a rather delicious lunch at the bottom, we took the cable car (that was more of a steep trolley--it had tracks below and cables above) to the top of Mount Tibidabo.

 As soon as we walked out of the cable car, this is what we saw. Immediately in front of us. I had known there was a church there, but I had no idea it was one of this magnitude. Stephanie quickly noticed that there were people all the way at the top, just below the statue of Jesus. We entered the church and it was pretty, but not as pretty as the one at Montserrat. However, this one we could climb. So Alissa opted out, but Lindsay, Stephanie, and I paid the 2€ elevator fee to get to the middle and then walked up four flights of stairs to get to the top. I'll put one picture of me all the way at the top here, but the rest are all in a facebook album I am about to post so look there if you want to. 

You might have been able to guess by my hair, but it was SOOO windy up at the top! And it was kind of cold! Not really cold, but way colder than it was at the bottom of the mountain, and still colder than at the bottom of the church. It was crazy! Oh, and the Jesus statue close-up is really creepy. It looks like he's about to swoop down on you like a hawk.





At the bottom of the church was an amusement park. For real. It was 25€ to get in and didn't look like it was worth it, so we skipped it. But you could enter without paying admission (they gave wristbands to people who'd paid so they could go on the rides) so of course we took some pictures:

 Seriously, the ticket booth was literally right in front of the giant church. It was a little weird, but kind of awesome.

 This carousel was the first ride that you see when you walk in. If you could see what we're all looking at, you'd see the giant church again. There were also roller coasters and a bunch of rides that took you over the edge of a cliff in different kinds of cars--like one that was an airplane that went very slowly in a circle but so that the riders ended up suspended over nothing but the ground thousands of feet below.

The tracks/cable for the cable car. Like I said, it was more similar to a streetcar/trolley that only went straight up and straight down.

After we got to the bottom, we waited for the bus and watched the government tow a bunch of cars that were illegally parked. I took some pictures of that but they definitely weren't blog-worthy.

By the time we got home we were tired, but Lindsay and I wanted dinner so we went back out to Sant Cugat (only three train stations away) and found the most delicious Mexican restaurant. We also decided that we are big fans of the Spanish national team that was playing soccer last night. They were all really cute.

Now I'm at work again. And I've been here an hour and done this the whole time (there are a lot of pictures on here and it takes a while to upload!). So looks like its going to be a fun three days. Three days, you ask? I'm going to Dublin Wednesday night! I'm so excited!