A couple of hours’ drive brings one to the foot of the mountains, and passing through a fine gorge the road ascends to the village of Valldemósa, perched upon a saddle among the hills. It was here that in the sixteenth century Santa Catalina was born—the pious maiden who on her walks used the leaves of the olive and lentisk as rosaries, and who from her cell heard mass being celebrated in Palma Cathedral, ten miles distant; but Valldemósa’s chief claim to fame lies in her great Carthusian monastery, a huge yellow pile occupying the ridge above the village. Originating as the summer palace of the Moorish rulers of Majorca, the great building was subsequently used as a residence by the kings of Aragon, and it was not till the year 1400 that it fell into the hands of the monks; fortified, restored, and added to at various times, the monastery eventually covered an enormous area of ground, and sufficient still remains to amaze us at the lavish style in which twelve Carthusian friars and their Father Superior were housed.
When the monastery was suppressed in 1835, the Spanish government made over the newer wing of the building to private persons, and nine Majorcan families occupy the monks’ old quarters to this day. Very charming are these monastic residences, entered from the cool, whitewashed cloisters; each set of rooms is quite secluded from the rest, and each has its small terrace garden to the south, where lemon-trees bask in the sunshine, screened by the high walls that divide each monk’s territory from that of his neighbour on either side. From the low parapet in front one looks out over a steep declivity of orange groves and ranges of hills stretching down to the gorge—the gate of the plains.
It was in one of these apartments that George Sand passed the winter when she visited the island with her two children in the year 1838, accompanied by the invalid Chopin. The accommodation provided for one Carthusian friar—three good-sized rooms and a kitchen on the ground floor, with as many bedrooms above stairs—afforded ample living room for the party of four; but the winter proved bitterly cold, and all the comforts of a northern home were lacking in an island where open fireplaces are unknown, and a brazier filled with charcoal is the only means of warming a room. At great expense an iron stove was brought up to Valldemósa and installed in one of the rooms, where it smelt abominably. In other matters the unfortunate strangers were no happier; the grand piano—imported from France—gave such endless trouble at the Palma customs that they would willingly have had it sunk in the harbour—but even that was not permitted. It was only after protracted wrangling that it was finally liberated upon the payment of four hundred francs.
“It was here that George Sand passed the winter when she visited the island with her two children in 1838, accompanied by the invalid Chopin.”
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“The mountain ranges stretch back in splendid perspective to where the faint blue battering-ram of the Dragonéra is dimly visible in the distance.”