HIDDEN MASTERPIECES:: HIDDEN MASTERPIECES: The Monastery of Poblet

At the end of a winding road in the Prades mountains, inland from the ancient Spanish city of Tarragona, stands the Cistercian monastery of Poblet, a place that is hard to get to and equally difficult to leave behind. It was founded in the middle of the 12th century by monks imported from the Fontfroide monastery in France. As always with Cistercian monasteries, the monks had picked their site with a view to maintaining a balance between the spiritual and the useful. In the center of the main cloister bubbled a pure natural spring. The surrounding fields were and are fertile,...