A tale of three monasteries

You may never have heard of The CistercianTriangle; I know I hadn’t.  Three monasteries: El Poblet, Santes Creus and Vallbona de les Monges all set to the North of Tarragona creating a pilgrimage route of around 100km.

We arrived at Santes Creus, trying to fit it into our tight schedule to ensure that we saw all three – how I wish we’d been able to have had longer there and to have explored the surrounding paths that led to small hermitages that the guide who gave us entrance to the monastery said was for her a sacred place.

The very entrance to the monastery was stunning. An unassuming gate led to a magnificent courtyard surrounded by apartments and a few small shops

I could have stayed for hours in the cloister gardens. A sense of peace seemed to envelop the place, creating a calm, a place of restoration, a space to sit and contemplate the God who brought me on this journey.  An audio tour brought the monastery to life through the eyes of an imagined monk. The church brought a renewed sense of awe and glimpse of a way of life through prayer, reading, silence and work.

The monastery at El Poblet is still a working  monastery and very much a tourist place judging by the number of coaches in the car park and the groups of school children.

A huge outer courtyard led through a closed gate into the cloister from off which each room lay, from kitchen to refectory to Chapter house to scriptorium.  Up the stairs lay the  medieval monks dormitory with its entrance directly into the  church.  It was easy to  imagine the monks of old going about their daily rhythm of life – though harder to imagine its use for the present incumbents whom we never saw.

Holy place, yes, but for me I longed for the quiet serenity of Santes Creus which may become the place all others are compared to.

Vallbona de les Monges was different yet again. A female monastery built within the town.  No startling entrance, no huge courtyard, rather a door off the street built within the community it serves – it is still an active monastery with a community of cistercian nuns.  A combination of audio visual and a guide took us round this sacred place – though all in Catalan so didn’t pick up much of what we were told. This monastery had been a place of hospitality and healing for the villages around it.  The nuns grew herbs and made medicines and potions in  the pharmacy.

The chapel here was far more understated than the previous two, but was a place where old and new, tradition and present were fused together giving the impression of a community who honour their past whilst embracing a relevant present.

In the cloister garden stood only one bush, that of a red rose who sweet fragrance seemed to embody the fragrance of God in this very feminine environment.

I would have loved the opportunity to have stayed here a few days as part of this community who we never met but whose presence was so obviously here.