Olive groves, hidden gorges, panoramic views and the most beautiful mountain villages of the island: a charming long-distance hiking trail leads away from mass tourism across Mallorca's wild Tramuntana mountains.
We want to hike the Tramuntana mountains complete - a hard way, dry and beautiful. Follow me all the way to the other side of a well known and complete unknown isle. (Please read chapter one here, chapter two here, three here, four here and five + six
According to legend, Lluc was a Moorish shepherd boy of Christian faith, who one afternoon was playing happily on the banks of a small stream. While doing so, he discovered, hidden among rocks, a statue of the Virgin Mary made of dark stone, which he first admired and then excitedly carried to the nearest parish church, where the villagers immediately gathered to celebrate and pray for the miracle of the discovery.
But no sooner did they shoo than the Mary disappeared again - she was found at her original location by the stream, where the boy had already discovered her.
One of the most beautiful in the world
Now the wound was even greater - and so the villagers decided to build her a chapel on this spot. This later became a church and finally a monastery, perhaps one of the most beautiful in the world.
Just as beautiful as the founding legend of the venerable Santuari de Santa Maria de Lluc, a place of pilgrimage in the Serra de Tramuntana mountains in the northwest of the island of Mallorca, is the building itself: Old stones, dark walls, wide corridors. And endless silence all around.
To those who come along the GR 221 long-distance hiking trail, endless kilometers in their feet and sweaty from walking between huge mountain peaks and bare slopes, in dark oak forests and across meadows full of goats, the monastery on the idyllic Torrent de Lluc really does seem like a sanctuary sent by HIM himself.
The buildings perch as a mighty complex at 525 meters above sea level, an important pilgrimage site that attracts pilgrims from all over the world who come to see Lluc's famous Madonna inside a small chapel of the monastery church.
700 years old
The "Santuari de Santa María de Lluc" has its origins in the 13th century, it was then the first Marian monastery in the Balearic Islands. 700 years later, Lluc is much more than a monastery - it is a symbol with which the inhabitants of Mallorca identify, the spiritual center of the Balearic Islands and one of the holiest places in Spain, which is truly not weak in faith. As early as 1962, Pope John XXIII named the monastery a "Basilica Minor", an honorable title granted only to very special church buildings.
Only a monastery it is not! In a sanctuari, a sanctuary, monks do not live in idyllic seclusion as in the monestir, the monastery. Lluc is administered by fathers who take care of the pilgrims who come on foot to worship the patron saint of Mallorca Mare de Déu de Lluc in the form of the black statue of the Madonna.
Fake news and lies?
However, as it is so rents of fake news and lies: The original statue from the founding legend has already disappeared since the Middle Ages. Either stolen or even destroyed, no one knows. By necessity, the faithful pray to a figure made in Belgium in 1520. The building is even younger, it was built in the 17th century in honor of Mallorca's patron saint, the Virgen de Lluc, also known here as "the dark-skinned one " (La Morenata).
It is quite sacred around the Santuari, which of course also has a holy spring with healing waters. It is a bit of a walk to get there, and then there is a queue, because many pilgrims take a few bottles with them. The water tastes at least not unusual, but it is very fresh and refreshing in Malloquin heat. Hope it works in more holy directions too, because we're out of band aid since days.
We quickly walk back to the church, where the incomparable boys' choir els Blauets sings, boys who sounds like girls, bright soprano voices with the sound of angels, popularly known as "Blauets" in reference to their blue cassock during the celebrations. The Blauets choir has been singing daily since 1531 - and the singers are all students of the affiliated high school, who get an education here because they sing so well. The choral singing of Lluc is thus one of the oldest cultural institutions on the European continent!
The restaurant is excellent
In addition to the approximately 50 monastic students and singers, guests, preferably pilgrims and hikers, also find comfortable accommodation and very good food in the monastery. The restaurant is excellent, quite worldly also the offer of spiritual drinks. The purpose-built cells are equipped with bathrooms, not monastery cells, but rather hotel rooms. The studios/apartments even have their own kitchenettes.
But they are not really needed. In the lively monastery complex are several restaurants, also a small store with shopping for food and souvenirs, a post office and a bank branch and a pharmacy, if the hiker on his way across the entire Tramuntane Mountains has run out of sticking plaster. It is! But the holy madonna saved my feet at last.
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