Monastery
Located in the hills of Casserres (Osona), at the edge of a peninsula formed by a fold of the River Ter as it leaves the plains of Vic to plunge into the Guilleries mountains, the monastery of Sant Pere de Casserres is an overwhelming sight.
As one of the most important buildings of the Catalonian Romanic, it was declared a monument of historic-artistic value in 1931. The interior is open to visitors wanting to learn something about the lifestyle of the monks in the monastery (the halls have been recreated on purpose to give an exact picture of how life was led in those early days).
Apart from making a trip to the past and imagining in full detail the lives of some of the monks that inhabited it, an audiovisual piece encourages visitors to follow its construction stage by stage and lets them in on a legend that has been kept secret inside the old castle's stones:
It is said that the monastery was constructed over the mummified relics of a child of the Viscounts of Osona and Cardona, owners of the monastery. The child was not "normal": three days after its birth the baby could already speak. The physicians said it would not live more than 30 days-and so it was. The body was treated according to custom: put inside a chest and hauled off on mule-back. On the first spot where the mule chanced to stop, a monastery devoted to Sant Pere was supposed to be constructed. Legend has it that this was exactly what was done.
…but we don't want to spoil you the story; if you want to find out about the mysteries of this legendary child, visit the Monastery of Sant Pere de Casserres.
