Today we return to that land of fantasy and legend, which, despite the inexorable passage of time, the destructive mark of that metaphorical Attila's horse—which, at times, represents fashion—and the apparent triumph of detachment over that authentic encyclopedia of popular knowledge that is Tradition, continues to be Aragon.
And we do so, reveling once again in that unique school of mystery and the fantastic, which also remains one of the most outstanding places, situated at the foot of one of the most legendary mountains in Spain, undoubtedly Moncayo: the Monastery of Santa María de Veruela.
In its calculated geometry, where even the mocking notches of those monsters that Bernard of Clairvaux considered childishly ridiculous invite us to speculate, we sense the presence, invisible yet intuitive, of a herald of the imagination, whose mortal remains, unlike the dark swallows of his poetry, did return to Seville: Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer.
The genius of his spirit, combined with the silence of the place, barely broken by the singular monologues eternally sustained by those two champions of duality, light and shadow, enhances, in the magnificent arches of the ancient monastery, the universal language of forms, surprising us with a masterful lesson in cause and effect, which, far from intimidating us, ignites our admiration.
We believe we understand, then, observing the beauty and perfection of this place, built in a time when nothing was left to chance, the fascinating attraction that such details of wisdom held for the fevered imagination of our poet friend, igniting, in his awakened pen, lines of calligraphy that, more than a century later, continue to captivate with their mystery and beauty.
And we wonder, as the place continues to enchant us more and more as we complete our visit, how many secrets still remain hidden, centuries after being carved into the cold stone, concealed in those mythological Gothic fantasies of capitals, where fantastic beings emerge from a forest and seem to warn us of an astonishing alchemical knowledge of nature, forming codes where remedies and poisons gave rise to the great medieval apothecaries.
Or even, upon seeing the symbolism of the formidable tombs, which, in times past, stirred the greed of countless treasure hunters around the world, what legendary mysteries their occupants were the protagonists of, whose mortal remains, as a famous song says, perhaps only the wind now knows their whereabouts, and even whether any of them ended up immortalized in the legends of the Sevillian genius.
Our dreamlike journey draws to a close, but not before we share the opinion of another well-known writer: the Veruela Monastery is another of those places in Spain that must be seen, explored, or experienced at least once in a lifetime.
NOTICE: Both the text and the accompanying photographs are my exclusive intellectual property and are therefore subject to my copyright.
