Spain and Portugal for Visitors

Valldemossa is a charming little old town in the Sierra de Tramuntana. Its main attraction is the Real Cartuja, Royal Charterhouse, a former Carthusian monastery, but when you have got that out of the way, Valldemossa is still a delightful place to stroll around. The link goes to its municipal website.

Frederic Chopin and George Sand spent the winter of 1838-1839 in Valldemossa, where Sand wrote "Winter in Majorca" and Chopin wrote his most famous preludes, 24 Preludes, Op. 28, and the monastery cell where they stayed is now this Chopin Museum. I'll point out that the Valldemossa palace was not a monastery at the time, but had been confiscated a few years earlier, and that 'cell' in this case does not mean a single, small room, but a suite of rooms and a garden, all in pretty tatty condition at the time, though the couple were very glad to find it. The garden has been prettified, but the rooms are essentially as they would have been then. The museum holds some interesting documents and sheet music and, above all, the Pleyel piano which Chopin had sent over especially.

Much of Valdemossa's Carthusian Monastery can be visited, not just the cells housing the Chopin Museum: the church, the cloisters, the monks' pharmacy, the Prior's Cell, gardens, the Municipal Museum, and a palace.

This is the place in the Tramuntana Sierra where Freddie Chopin and Georgie Sand bunked down together for the winter of 1838-39, to the scandal and delight of nineteenth-century gossip-mongers and consumers. The Union Jack on the entrance page to this site is misleading, there is very little content in English, but there is a sweet list of Ilustres Personalidades, famous people, who have visited the place more or less recently, including ex-presidents Clinton and Carter. Is there something about Valldemossa which repels Republicans?