The Great Cloister Garden Adventure

Hello, my peeps! I am back and better than ever! (Uhhh or something. More tired than ever? Moving on...) And I'm here to tell you all about my trip! Or... a lot about it. It's a lot to cover all in one post, so this is going to be a bit of a highlight reel. 

First of all, some stats...
-Weeks of travel: Eight
-Countries visited: Four (France, Spain, Italy, the Vatican)
-Cities and towns visited: Thirty-seven (yes, that is 37)
-Cloisters surveyed: Fifty-five (yup, 55)
-Cloister-like monastic gardens: 10
-Other monastic gardens: probably 5-ish

(I will leave you to do the math on the average number of cloisters and gardens per week and per day. XD)

To recap exactly what I was doing on this trip... I was doing the field study of Dominican (and Benedictine and Cistercian) cloisters that I will be using as a basis for my senior thesis on The History and Typology of the Cloister Gardens of the Dominican Order, and A Guide For Future Design. My university very generously gave me a grant to fund (most of, lol) this research, and to quote my grant proposal:

"The tradition of monastery and convent cloister gardens, and other gardens surrounding monasteries, such as the monastery vegetable garden, and sacristy garden, is ancient. However, while scholars have studied and described in detail the architecture of medieval monasteries, such as Cluny, and have studied certain records of medieval monastery gardens, such as the St. Gaul Cloister Plan, little study has been done on the modern permutations of monastic cloister gardens (and other types of monastic gardens), and how they both build on the ancient traditions and innovate for the needs of the monastery in the modern world.

Because of my Catholic background, I have always been interested in monasteries and convents, and especially their gardens, because they are a landscape architectural dimension of monasteries that are vital to monastic life, and because relatively little has been written about them. I would like to study the monasteries and convents of Europe in particular, because many of these communities have existed and have cultivated their cloister gardens for centuries. For some of the gardens, there are records of how they have been cultivated in the past, and by comparing these records to the modern cultivation of the gardens, I can analyze how approaches to these gardens have changed or otherwise. In addition, the study of the different permutations of European cloister gardens in various areas and climates can inform the future design and restoration of American cloister gardens. 

The interest, to me, of the Dominican order lies in the fact that while the male branch of the order are not cloistered, they still cultivate cloister gardens in many of their Houses. Seeing a broad variety of monasteries in a broad variety of urban and rural contexts in varying climates and conditions will allow a detailed analysis of ways in which Dominican cloister gardens differ and are similar and will perhaps allow for the development of a set of design guidelines for a distinctively Dominican cloister." 

I would add to the above that I was interested in discovering how cloister gardens are used by the Dominicans, and analyzing how form does (or does not) follow function in that case, and how the modern uses compare to the ancient uses both of the Dominican and Benedictine orders. 

So anyway...that was a lot, but that's what I was doing! I'm not going to talk about my research a ton more in this post specifically, but you're welcome to ask questions about it, when you ask questions...see below. :)

It was such a long and jam-packed trip that I don't feel like I can possibly do a full overview in one post, so I thought I would give you five to seven highlights from each country, and then do an AMA for anything else you want to know! (More details on that in a mo.)

I will say, though, that it was really awesome because I could definitely feel the hand of God on every part of the trip! Even on the crazy travel days where it felt like everything went wrong, I still always ended up where I was supposed to be by the evening (well, except one time, but that was a separate issue). God came through! Okay, now on to the highlights...

France

-Mont-Saint-Michel was one of my first stops on the trip, and remains one of my favorite things that I visited. It looks like something out of a fantasy movie--this huge island rising out of the sand, with a monastery on the top, and a St. Michael pinnacle on top! The landscape around it, with the tidal flats and sheep, is also incredibly beautiful. And the High Gothic church in the monastery is one of the most beautiful churches I saw on my entire trip. (It's steep to climb though, I have to say! XD)

-I got to stay at a Benedictine monastery in Solesmes, and the monks let me come into their enclosure to see their cloisters, which was wild! They definitely don't usually do that--I think it helps that the prior of the community is also a scholar of cloister gardens, which Wasn't Intimidating At All. Only one of the monks spoke English--he was actually from the US, which was rather shocking; I wasn't expecting a French Benedictine with a perfect East-Coast accent--and he helped with the translation of all of Father Prior's insights about the gardens. I also got to chat with the American monk about his plans to establish a chocolatery, which I really enjoyed, and I got a lot of silent time and time saying the Divine Office with the monks. 

-Toulouse was one of my favorite cities to visit--it's a bit like Paris, and it has beautiful churches, but it's a lot less busy and touristy than Paris is, which I appreciated. Also, I got to see the Couvent des Jacobins, the first convent (house of male Dominicans) of the Dominican order! One of my favorite things about that particular cloister is that it had a ruined fountain house! These are the kind of nerdy things I get excited about. If anyone reading this is considering a career in landscape architecture, beware...you'll end up going on and on about fountain houses. Maybe. The thing that made me so nerdily excited about this particular fountain house was that all that remained of it was the floor--basically, there was a paved octagonal bit in one corner of the cloister that didn't match the rest of the cloister. It took me a couple of minutes to realize what it was, but once I did, I felt like I had successfully won a treasure hunt. 

-I was staying in Paray-le-Monial (which is where devotion to the Sacred Heart originated with Jesus appearing to St. Margaret Mary Alacoque) and made a day trip to Lyon to go to Mass at the Dominican church there and try to see their cloister (based on a tip given me by the friars in Paris). I realized during Mass that the cloister opens right off of the church and that parents were actually sending their kids out into it to get their wiggles out. I figured I could probably go into it, too, but that it would be better to ask permission first, just in case. Providentially, the Dominican I ran into on the steps of the church was from Ottawa and spoke very fluent English. He was visiting the community in Lyon, but he told me "Just go and do your work in the cloister, and if anyone asks you, tell them I told you it was alright for you to be there! If there's fallout from that, I'll deal with it later." He then came and chatted with me about my research for several minutes, and told me about the cloister that the community in Ottawa has. I was glad that I had gotten his permission because no fewer than two other Dominicans came in while I was taking notes and asked me what I was doing in a private area! But as soon as I said "Fr. so-and-so told me I could be here!" they were fine with it. 

-I was in Lourdes for a couple of days, and while the Dominican sisters didn't actually let me see their cloister (oops), it was a really beautiful few days, because since I didn't actually have research to do, I got to just hang out, pray at the shrine, and go to rosary processions in the evenings, which was beautiful and restful. 

-After Lourdes, I went and stayed with a community of Dominican sisters in Dax, who one of our friars had recommended that I stay with. The prioress of the community had actually visited my home parish in the PNW, and spoke fluent English, which was good because I don't speak French! I got to stay in their guest house with several other guests, pray with the sisters (them turning off all the lights and singing the Dominican Salve Regina together in the darkened church in the evening is one of the most beautiful things I've experienced in my life), and study their beautiful gardens--not only the cloister, but also their vegetable gardens and flowers! 

-Between Spain and Italy, I got to spend a weekend in a tiny little town in Provence, France, where I visited this incredible Cistercian abbey, called Senanque, which is still active! They grow lavender, and so it's this adorable light-stone abbey in the middle of gorgeous lavender fields--it's pretty much impossible to take a bad picture there! The only problem is that it's in a super deep valley with no cell reception, and it was about a half hour drive from where I was staying, so I had to hike up out of the valley (in a dress, no less!) in order to get cell reception to call an Uber to bring me back to where I was staying. XD 

Spain

-Burgos was one of my favorite cities in Spain (that probably also had something to do with the fact that it wasn't nearly as hot as any other city I visited in Spain, and also not as busy as, say, Barcelona) with a beautiful cathedral, central square, and old town. I was there for about a week while visiting cloisters there and in surrounding towns, and at the end, it was the Festival of Sts. Peter and Paul, which is a special municipal festival which apparently involves things like bullfighting and playing-mariachi-music-until-2-am-outside-unsuspecting-tourists'-windows. ;) Burgos was also where I had the most transcendental mango granziada of my life. I still think about it on a weekly basis. 

-Santo Domingo de Silos was one of my day trips from Burgos, and it was one of the most beautiful drives I made on the entire trip--the (northern) Spanish countryside is all blue and gold and red (from the soil) and I could not get enough of it! (And it's hilly--it looks like a mix between Eastern Washington and Wyoming.) The monastery itself was also beautiful, with a really complex cloister garden. I got to go to Mass before analyzing said garden, and the monks chanted the Mass so beautifully! But also, the entire tiny town was spectacular.

-I was in Avila for one weekend, which was fun because the Dominican community in Avila has a student residence connected to it that's very similar to Newman, except run by Dominicans and in Spain, and they invited me to stay there! Which was great! The church there is one of the most beautiful ones I saw on my trip, but it also smelled like the old community center in middle-of-nowhere Illinois where we run our Newman retreats, which was a little trippy! It was also both funny and fun because all of the students staying in the housing were supposed to eat meals together at the same time, so it was just me and fifteen random Spanish college students sitting at one table together eating a multi-course meal, while they chatted away and I pretended I didn't exist. XD

-I was so excited to visit Cordoba, because we had talked about several Cordoba landmarks/monuments in my Islamic Gardens and Architecture class, and I hadn't even considered, at the time, that I might get to see them in real life! So, I got to visit the Mosque-Cathedral of Cordoba (now a cathedral, officially), and Madinat-al-Zahra, which is the archeological dig area of an old city that was used by the caliph (ruler) as the seat of his power. It was very reminiscent of The Horse and His Boy! Cordoba is also just very fun to wander around, especially in the Jewish quarter, with the winding, non-gridded streets, white walls, and quirky little stores. And the Dominican church I visited there, in the hills above Cordoba, was beautiful, and I got to chat extensively with one of the friars there. 

-Granada was another city that I was excited about mostly aside from cloister research (although I did look at the cloister of Santa Cruz la Real!) because that's where the Alhambra is! The Alhambra is an old palace complex that was begun in Islamic days, and continued to be occupied by the Catholic rulers for many centuries. It has incredible gardens and architecture, and I spent almost an entire day there. 

-When I was staying in Barcelona (with Dominican sisters, entirely coincidentally--they didn't have a cloister) I went on two different day-trips to different Cistercian or Benedictine monasteries, and the most beautiful one that I saw on any of those trips was Santes Creus. Unfortunately, it was under construction, but it was, even so, the most beautiful Gothic cloister I saw on my entire trip. <3

-One of my friends said, in passing "oh, if you're in Barcelona, you should go to Monserrat!" I had no idea what Monserrat was, other than a monastery with a good view, and so I punched it into my phone after my last stop on one of my day trips and started driving. As I was driving, I noticed this massive mountain/massif-type-thing in the distance with a jaggedy top, and was like "whoa, that's beautiful!" and only as I got closer and closer realized... oh. Mont. Serrat. Serrated mountain. That is, in fact, where I'm going! The drive up the mountain (basically, switchbacks up a straight up and down slope) was one of the most terrifying of my life--blind corners every few seconds, and only a guard rail keeping me from falling off the edge--but the view from the top was worth it! 

Italy

-One of my favorite things about Dominican churches throughout my travels, but especially in Italy, is that they will often work black and white in as part of their color scheme, paying obvious homage to the colors of the order! Santa Maria delle Grazie, in Milan, was one of the first churches I noticed doing this, and I have a soft spot for it, consequently. Also, the cloister there that's open to the public is called  the Cloister of the Frogs, because it has a frog fountain in the middle, which I think is really funny. 

-I got to spend several days in Venice, which I absolutely loved! I know it's really touristy, but really, the reason I love it is not because of the tourist attractions, or really any of the "famous" or "artsy" bits, but because I cannot get enough of towns with windy little alleys, and that's all of Venice, with the laudable addition of canals, too! I also loved the Dominican church there--another of the most beautiful churches I got to see.

-I cannot scream enough about getting to see San Marco in Florence. If you're not familiar with San Marco, it's the Dominican convent where Fra Angelico did most of his frescoes/art for the friars. There are about forty cells, and every single one has its own Fra Angelico fresco!! That's not to mention all the other places in the complex that Fra Angelico did art, including his famous Annunciation and Crucifixion. (Fra Angelico is one of my three favorite artists of all time, the other two being Caravaggio and El Greco (and yes, those are three very different styles, sue me) so you can probably imagine the amount of mind being lost over the whole thing.)

-Santa Maria Novella, also in Florence, comes a close second to San Marco, for obvious reasons, but it has four beautiful cloisters, and a wonderful frescoed chapel based, I believe, on the Divine Comedy. Speaking of which, getting to see Dante's house while in Florence was also really cool! (Not the inside--just the outside.) 

-I didn't get to stay with Dominicans much in Italy, but I did get to stay with a community in Naples, which I really enjoyed. They were so welcoming--I arrived a bit late, and they insisted that I join them in the refectory and have a second dinner, and then the second night I was there, they invited me to join them for ice cream and fellowship! (Which was a bit awkward, since I don't speak much Italian even when I understand it, but it was still fun--and delicious!) 

-I ended up being in Palermo, Sicily, for longer than I intended because of the rental car company refusing to rent me a rental car for the weekend trip I was planning from there (I have Thoughts about Company Policy That Doesn't Comply With Stated Italian Law, shall we say) but oh my word, Sicily has the best granita ever (flavors included peach, fig, pomegranate, mango, coffee, and pomegranate ginger you guys, I could have stayed there for years) so I wasn't really all that cut up about the change. ;) (The granita is the highlight here, in case you couldn't tell. Although their cloisters were nice, too.)

-While I was in Rome (which was a highlight all by itself--I love Rome so very much) I got to visit Santa Sabina, which is the first Dominican foundation in Rome (St. Dominic and St. Pius V both lived there--crazy!). One of my friends put me in touch with one of the friars who lives there, who is coincidentally the Socius for North America and Vietnam, which I was already feeling somewhat intimidated by, and then he's showing me around Santa Sabina, and we turn the corner and suddenly I'm being introduced to freaking Fr. Gerard Timoner, Master of the Dominican Order and trying not to show how much I'm losing my ever-living mind as he's asking me about my research. It was wild, y'all. 

Vatican City
(where I didn't take any pictures this trip)

-I somehow scored tickets to see the Scavi--the excavations of the ancient necropolis under St. Peter's Basilica. And by "scored" I mean "only 250 people get to see them per day, please think about how many tourists are in Rome every day". It was beautiful and insane and I got to see the literal bones of St. Peter. I still haven't totally processed that. (Also, I coincidentally got to go on my birthday, which was a really good birthday present. 

-Also on my birthday, I got to go to Confession in St. Peter's! I hadn't been to Confession in six weeks, not for lack of trying (but for some reason, priests who only speak Spanish and Catalan are reluctant to hear confessions in English? Not sure what that's about) and I was so excited to be getting to go to Confession, since I usually go every two weeks! But I go into the Confessional, say "Bless me, Father, for I have sinned, it's been six weeks since my last Confession", confess my sins, and the first thing he says to me is "you should come to Confession more often!" 
*dies*
Father. Sir. I tried SO HARD. XD

-St. Peter's. I don't think it will matter how often I see St. Peter's in my life, I'm pretty sure it will always take my breath away. Getting to go to Mass there on my birthday, as well, was a definite highlight. 

-One of my perennial favorite things inside St. Peter's is praying at St. John Paul II's tomb. It's always a beautiful, crazy thing to pray at the tomb of a person who died and was canonized during my life time, and who my parents actually met. 

-I got tickets to the Vatican Museums this time, which are amazing in multiple ways, but the Sistine Chapel does absolutely take the cake, as one would, probably expect. 

I also got a couple of really satisfying "sets" of experiences throughout the whole trip:

-I got to see both the sepulchre of St. Therese of Lisieux and that of St. Benedict of Nursia, who are my two Confirmation patrons (St. Therese is in Lisieux, France, and St. Benedict is at Montecassino, in Italy).

-I visited the place where St. Dominic was born (Caleruega, Spain), where he started the Dominican Order (Toulouse, France), and where he died and was buried (Bologna, Italy)! Appropriate for a Dominican research trip, ne c'est pas?

So there you have it! An overview of my trip! 

Because I didn't share everything about this trip (lack of space, lack of time!) if you have any questions about anything about the trip, any places I visited, experiences I had, cloisters I saw and analyzed, etcetera, please drop them in the comments! Ask as many questions as you'd like. If I get at least seven questions, I'll do post answering them next week! If not, we will forget I ever said this. ;)