Anyone who has been in Majorca drove the few kilometers up the mountain to Valldemossa. Anyone who has been in Valldemossa entered a museum in a former Carthusian monastery. Anyone who has been at the museum looked into "the cell of Chopin".
Our pictures show Valldemossa on a cold winter day (a strong wind and approx. 8 degrees Celsius), which did not take away the charm of this mountainous village.
Cell No. 4 of the Carthusian monastery is grandly named Chopin Museum. And in the cell there is an exhibition devoted to him.
This what Chopin wrote shortly after his arrival in Mallorca:
"I am in Palma between palms, cedars, cacti, olives, oranges, lemons, aloes, figs, pomegranates, etc. Whatever the Jardin des Planes has in its furnaces. The sky is like turquoise, sea like azure, mountains like emerald, air like heaven. During the day the sunshine, everyone in summer clothes; at night the guitar and singing for hours. Balconies huge with grapes over the heads; Moorish walls. All for Africa, as well as the city looks. In a word, absolutely wonderful life. (...) I will live probably in a wonderful monastery, the most beautiful place in the world: the sea, the mountains, palm trees, cemetery, a Teutonic church, ruins of the mosques, thousand-year old olive trees. And, my life, I live a little more ... I'm close to what is most beautiful. "
It was November 1838. Chopin arrived here with George Sand and her two children. With Palm moved to Valldemossa to the Carthusian monastery in Valldemossa, where they rented one goal.
Even after a month stay in Valldemossa, Chopin complained about the weather and local cuisine. The composer was supposed to thrive in the Mediterranean climate, but winter of the year was exceptionally rainy. Chopin caught a cold, and in addition the piano specially imported from Europe, disappeared on the road. The found instruments weeks later happened to be in the port of Palma where it had been hold for unpaid import tax. Chopin played, instead, on a poor Mallorcan piano. Despite the difficulties, he kept working on his new pieces. It was in Mallorca where he completed a cycle of preludes considered by experts as the most outstanding works.
The most important of the few exhibits are put in a cell number 4. The Pleyel piano ordered by the composer in Paris reached Valldemossa 3 weeks before his departure. On leaving, Chopin and Sand did not want to pay high taxes a second time, and left it to the Director of the bank who credited the trip.
The pair of lovers did leave much behid. The locals, fearing tuberculosis, burned most of the equipment in the rooms where Chopin and Sand lived.
21 September 1998. Queen of Spain Sophia and wife of the President of Poland Jolanta Kwaśniewska unveiled the bust of Frederic Chopin sculpted by Zofia Wolska, commemorating the composer's stay in Valldemossa.
