Tarraco´s blessed mountains

The Tarragona province has a number of exceptional mountain ranges such as the massifs of Montsant and els Ports which are natural parks. The Poblet woodland, part of the mountains of Prades, is also a protected area with the status of natural area of national interest.

The Montsant natural park (see top picture) lies in the north of the Priorat comarca and is the natural park closest to those holidaying on the Costa Dorada. The ´Holy Mountain´ (which is what Montsant means literally) has historically been a place of spirituality and transcendence, of hidden-away Romanesque chapels and hermitages and of course also home to the oldest Carthusian monastery - Scala Dei or ´God´s Stairway´ - south of the Pyrenees. Even the Muslims (who occupied this land for centuries) called it the ´blessed mountain´. The whole world knows about the Priorat and Montsant wines, some also know about the beauty of the vine-covered slate hills, but far fewer know about the stunningly imposing blocks of conglomerate rock, chasms, caves, gorges and grottoes of the 9,200 hectares of the Montsant natural park. Like els Ports, the Montsant mountain is difficult to access: no vehicles can get here.

The els Ports natural park is probably one of Spain´s wildest - and least-known - mountains, with its deep rugged ravines and its herds of wild mountain goats (which have barely survived anywhere else). Eagles, vultures and falcons are some of the other animal species seen in els Ports. This is a park of over 35,000 hectares, extending into Aragon and Valencia.

The Poblet woodland, on the northern slopes of the Prades mountains, is about a quarter of the size of the Montsant park. These woods (see picture below) were historically part of the property portfolio of the famous Poblet monastery, Spain´s most important Cistercian monastery. This is a dense, leafy wood at great altitude, a refuge of trees and species unusual for these latitudes so close to the Mediterranean, with lots of wildlife, including the wild boar and the peregrine falcon, and a growing network of hiking and biking trails.

It is said that on a clear day, at the summit of the 1,202 metre-high La Baltasana, one can see the els Ports mountains in the south and the Pyrenees in the north.

To allow us to discover these areas we should give credit to the first generation of hikers who have mapped often long-forgotten footpaths, cart tracks and trails of cattle herders, wood choppers and charcoal makers.

Poblet and Mount Athos: spiritual twins

Spirituality is definitely back on the agenda of the 21st century. Even the old (and especially the oldest) monasteries are creeping into the newspaper headlines. Which brings me to the Delos Initiative whose agenda is to help secure the sanctity and biodiversity of sacred natural sites in developed countries across the world. Sprung from the World Commission on Protected Areas of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) - one of the world´s biggest environmental organizations and lobbies - the Delos Initiative has so far selected 27 sacred natural sites: 1 in Australia, 1 in Bulgaria, 2 in Finland, 3 in Greece (inclsuing the Athos Peninsula), 1 in Israel, 2 in Italy, 2 in Japan, 1 in Morocco, 2 in Romania, 1 in Russia, 1 in South Africa, 1 in South Korea, 2 in the US, 2 in the UK (Arran Island Marine Reserve and Lindisfarne National Nature Reserve) and five (!) in Spain. Coincidence? Spain has plenty sites that would qualify. Among those selected so far four (! - again) are based in Catalonia: Poblet Monastery, Montsant, Montserrat and the (Buddhist) Tashi Ling Monastery in the Park of Garraf.

The idea behind the Delos Initiative is to investigate and learn from the relationship between, e.g., Poblet Monastery and its surrounding landscape - a protected nature reserve with different types of Mediterranean forests and vineyards in the lowlands. It is all about re-valuing the spirituality of nature reserves and about recognizing the traditions, know-how and skills of the ancestral custodians of nature such as the monastic communities. In the words of Josep Maria Mallarach, geologist and environmental consultant, "the protection of natural sites is a very recent phenomenon, whereas the concept of sacralization of nature stems from remote times...when national parks managers only take into consideration material values and devalue non-material ones, the spiritual foundation that has kept these landscapes intact is being undervalued". Wise words. A series of concrete proposals and projects exploiting the synergies between Poblet and its woodland-cum-vineyard landscape are in the pipeline - I´ll keep you posted!

For more on this initiative see: www.med-ina.org/delos/sites.htm

Spirits & Wine in Poblet

The austere, majestic monastery of Poblet – since 1991 a World Heritage site - is one of the most important, largest, most complete and most perfect medieval monastic complexes that exists in Europe. Poblet has also served as a massive military complex, and as a royal palace, residence and pantheon.
Lying midway between Tarragona and Lleida, in the comarca of the Conca de Barbera, the old Cistercian monastery was founded in 1150 to colonize the (re)conquered lands of New Catalonia - the last Moors were driven out in 1149 -, introducing agricultural and viticultural know-how into these lands. In the 14th century it was transformed into a military stronghold. The Real Monasterio de Santa María de Poblet is also a royal residence, directly associated with the history of the houses of Barcelona, Aragon and Castile. It houses a sumptuous dynasty burial place for several kings of the houses of Catalonia and Aragon (such as James I the Conqueror). Poblet was both the necropolis and the home of kings. In later centuries the monastery fell from being a seat of kings to the function of being a place of refuge. It is still nowadays a working monastery and draws over 150,000 visitors a year.

A great gallery of images of Poblet and the surrounding comarcas can be found on the website of a new magazine, entitled ´Cultura i Paisatge a la Ruta del Cister´, a spin-off of the now well-established ´Ruta del Cister´ or Cistercian Route, connecting Poblet with the other two Cistercian monasteries of Southern Catalonia (Santes Creus and Vallbona de les Monges): go to http://www.culturaipaisatge.com/