Day three: Take an early train to Placa d’Espanya. The train leaves the station once every hour and takes about 1 hour to get there. I suggest you sit on the left-hand side of the train to give you a brilliant view as you approach the mountain. With the tourist bus voucher book, it costs about €31.1. This included the train there and back; the cable car up and back from the station or the mini-train, your choice; two other cable cars from Montserrat, one to the very top of the hill 960m above sea level and one downwards to a smaller chapel, plus entry to the museum and lunch. It turned out to be great value. Lunch includes a soup or salad, main dish, soft drink or water, and dessert. I chose the dried fruit with sangria. It was a delight, and I was able to take the bottle home with me.

I loved Barcelona… the architecture, views, and food. It is not a particularly English-friendly region, but you can get by. It seems that most people in Barcelona are tourists, and mostly Spanish speaking ones. Don’t be afraid to walk in any direction and discover the unexpected.

The FGC station is located in Plaça d’Espanya, here you buy a ticket and take line R5 in the direction of Manresa, your station is Montserrat-Aeri, here you will take the cable car (called Aeri in Catalan and Aereo in Spanish) which brings you to the mountain. The first train leaves Plaça d’Espanya at 8:36am, after that there is a train every hour.

Before deciding what to visit first, stop by the information office. It is located above half way up the stairs leading to Plaça de la Creu, to the left of the cable car station and one of the cafeterias. They will give you a map of the sights and you can decide what to see and in which sequence. There is also an audiovisual exhibit nearby that shows how monks live in the monastery nowadays, gives a visual tour of the monastery.

If you arrive to the mountain around lunchtime, there are two cafeterias, one right across from the cable car station and the other further to the right with a large observation deck. That one is the one that you want to get to if you have a Montserrat card. You will not only enjoy your lunch, but will have a great view of the mountains at the same time.

Across from the cafeteria, there is a stop of a small train (it’s a free service) which brings you to Plaça de la Creu. The train stops in front of the hotel Abat Cisneros. There is constant construction going on since they are building another rail, so be careful when walking up and down the stairs.

Continued from Part I

The entrance to the cathedral is through a large courtyard that looks like a baroque building with walls covered with painted columns. But all of this is just an imitation since you can clearly see "1901" as cathedral year of construction on its façade. The entrance door to the cathedral is to the right, and you walk through several chapels in various styles from Gothic to modern, with "silence" signs blinking and organ music covering the cathedral. The cathedral is very large and impressive with several Catalan kings graves in the front in the courtyard, and the walls of the courtyard are covered with beige-green paintings of saints. The ceiling and altar paintings are Art Nouveau. You continue to the second floor along the staircase decorated with marble statues and mosaics of saints, until you get to the very top and find yourself behind the altar, at the eye level with the crystal chandelier across the floor near the organs and the statue of the Black virgin (La Moreneta) in the alcove. This small statue is the biggest treasure of the monastery and is considered the patroness of Catalonia.

Then you begin your descent along the fresco-covered walls and exit the basilica on the side to once again wind up in the courtyard. The whole basilica has gorgeous stained glass windows with bright colors. On the second floor, the arches are supported by columns (four columns for each arch), the paintings above the altar in Art Nouveau style look very much like works of Mucha with elongated figures of angels and saints. The style of the building is neo-Gothic and it seems very different from earlier Spanish cathedrals in that its creators tried to take the best of the European traditions of their time. Its décor is innovative and much lighter and brighter. It doesn’t have the typical religious fear of Spanish churches of prior centuries. This is more of a piece of art rather than place to worship God.

Montserrat is a mountain of great beauty that for a long time has been a place of pilgrimage for many travelers. It is located not far from Barcelona (about 40 minutes by train) and if you have an extra day, spend it here, enjoying the fresh air and beauty of this nature’s wonder. There is also a monastery, beautiful basilica, art museum, hotel, cafes and shops on the top of the mountain.

Phone: 93 877 77 01
Website: www.abadiamontserrat.net Open: 1) Basilica -– Oct-Jun 8am–6:30pm daily, Jul-Sep 7:30am–8:30pm daily 2) Museum -– Jan-Feb 10am–4:45pm, Mar-Dec 10am–6pm daily

Tickets: Montserrat card costs 34 euros (10% discount with Bus Touristic discount book). Card includes tickets for train, cable cars, museum, and lunch.

If you buy tickets separately: tickets for the train cost 11.30 euros/roundtrip, the cable car and funicular de Sant Joan each costs 6.10 euros/roundtrip, funicular de la Santa Cova cost 2.50 euros/roundtrip, lunch at the cafeteria costs 9.40 euros (two plates, wine, and desert). The Montserrat card is a better value than if you had to buy each ticket separately, and if you are planning on getting to the mountain around noon, the cable car that brings you from the train station to the mountain has lunch break and you may miss the last cable car by standing in line for the tickets. The cars fill fast and wait time between cable cars can be more than 15 minutes. When you are going up and down in the cable car you ears get stuffed up as if you are taking off in a plane from the change in the height above sea level and you get a feeling that the cable car can fall any minute, but that feeling passes as you soon as you hit the ground. You can get more details at www.fgc.net or by calling 93 205 15 15.

The mountains here surround you everywhere and look so peaceful. This is a great place to relax and enjoy life. If you like to live on the edge, you can take two funiculars down the mountain. The rail that they follow is at a 45 degree angle, and for a short period of time it feels like a rollacoaster ride. If you came here for a religious pilgrimage, one of the funiculars takes you to Santa Cova, the other to Sant Joan.

If you came here for culture, you’ve come to the right place as well. Start with the Montserrat basilica located at the top of the mountain, 717 m above the sea level.

Continued in Part II

From the Black Virgin Mary Shrine you walk out into the Cloisters, where there are places for hundreds of candle novinas. Our ticket gave us unlimited rides on the funiculars, so we headed to those next. One takes you up to the summit of the mountain and the other takes you down to the walkway that leads to the Holy Cave where the Black Virgin is said to have been found. Be mindful of your time at the monastery, because the funiculars do not run all day. The last ones go up at 4:00 and 4:25 and the last ones come down at 4:15 and 4:40. We had just enough time to snap a couple of pictures and then get right back down, but we were unable to hike along any of the dozen or so trails up there.

We never made it to the Holy Cave because it closed at 4:25, which is when the funicular LEAVES the station to come down (silly planning on their part, if you ask me). Do visit the gift shops, however. There are two of them and they sell some really neat things! If you can leave Barcelona for Montserrat early in the morning, you should have enough time to see and do everything.