Majorca, part seven - Lluc

LLUC MONASTERY.

Lluc, pronounced 'Yuk' is famous for its monastery. We'd looked at it on Google earth, but it only let you look through the gates, giving a tantalising view of the building. We HAD to see it. First job though, was to return to Alcudia and pick up the car.

As I've said, Alcudia is NOT our kind of place, but there is still some beauty, if you look past all the burger joints and arcades. This inland canal was one such spot.

Soon, we left the confines of Alcudia and were on our way. The open road is fabulous, and I took to the driving with ease. We twisted, turned, 'ooooed' and 'ahhhhed' for most of the way to Lluc. It was JUST what we wanted to see - sudden, BANG! views, all the way. A friend had loaned us a sat nav, so we were very grateful for that. Not that we'd have minded getting lost in THIS sort of country.

Before long, we recognised (from Google earth) the gates of Lluc monastery. We parked in the ample car park (not expensive) and started to explore.

The impressive frontage, these rooms can be rented, and I'm told they not not as austere as you would expect. Sue likes the seat by the fountain.

The archway to the inner courtyard.

Inside, another wonderful facade.

There sure is some work gone into that stone!

Not sure who this fellow was, probably some founding father.

Again, inside just blew you away The splendour, the opulence, the sheer majesty of the whole thing.

Look up - more incredible paintings and stained glass.

The sides of the chamber told of Christ's journey to the cross.

In the hallway, in stark contrast, a very simple bust.

Once back outdoors, we decided to take in the warm, sunny day and climb up to a cross we could see on the hillside above us. Once more, the stations of the cross were present. The carvings, though,  were on a MUCH grander scale than, say the ones at Old Pollenca. A lot of man hours and money had gone into these.

The path was wide and well made, much more substantial than seemed necessary.

Part of the hillside had been carved out to accomodate this huge one.

.

This almost looks like the centre of a volcanic crater. It must be verdant though, as there were farms and houses down there.

Some of the rock was in very strange shapes. A throwback to when it was liquid.

Once at the top, another tourist took our picture with this great backdrop.

This is a video of the view from the cross. 

This was as close to a perfect day as you can get.

We could also sea the sea - our next destination!

Amazingly, someone had taken the trouble to bring a chair all the way up here.

Here, you can see the damage the tornado did to the roof of the monastery. Now, I don't want to court argument, or give offense, but me not being religious has to ask, all this God worship that goes on in these places, and then a freak wind rips the roof off the place. An act of God? OH! The irony.

Picture taken from video display of damage.

They were appealing for donations to buy THOUSANDS of tiles to repair the roof. We were asked for, and gave, two euros.

We were allowed to write on the tile, so we did.

As did lots of other people.

Then they were stacked - ready to be fitted.

More shots of the damage.

The hotel we stayed at provided excellent food. We were half board, but the quality and amount they served meant we were never hungry! We DID, however, sometimes fancy something light at lunch, so a salad & olives was the order of the day, served on our own map of Majorca!

Fresh orange and coffee (we were driving) accompanied the lovely salad. We were quite surprised at just how nice it was, given that we were a 'captive audience', and in a tourist hot-spot. All credit to the little cafe outside the monastery.

A plateful of sunshine, if ever there was.

Then, it was Mariano Miranda on the stereo, air con up full, and off back into the mountains, but headed seawards to probably one of the most winding roads I've ever driven, to Sa Calobra.

You KNOW it's going to be 'fun' when the sat nav looks like this!

Here we go...........