Hiking in Montserrat

Let me start off this post by telling you I don’t hike. Hiking is not my thing. Spinning? Sure. Swimming? Absolutely. Running? Once upon a time. But hiking? No.

We started off day four of our Barcelona trip very early and by the time I was sitting on our 9:36am train heading out of the city center I had already had two cups of coffee. Having been to Barcelona a decade ago my mom had a few requests when we were planning this trip and one was to spend a day at Monserrat. With all of my travel planning, day trips were honestly not on my radar but she was insistent that this town was work the hike, literally.

From our hotel on Las Ramblas we jumped on the subway to head to La España, one of the central transportation hubs, and from there boarded a train to Monserrat. I found we could get there a few ways but we chose train to the Arie Monserrat which involved a bit of a wait and then a very scenic five minute journey up the yellow cable car.

The actual town of Monserrat was actually even smaller than I had expected but this small, quaint monetary town had one of the most helpful information centers ever. My mom and I bought the audio guide and listened to a ton of history before entering the basilica at noon. Despite it being our fifth church in four, you can see some of them here and here, this basilica was quite unique dating back to the 14th century.  Besides waiting inline to touch the hand of the Black Madonna, the hands down top tourist attraction, we also planned the day so we were in the main hall of the church to see the famous boys of the choir school perform at 1pm.  The boys of the music school at Monserrat, aged 10 to 14, sing daily for visitors.

After we had finished exploring the small town we returned our audio guides and headed up the mountain.  My research said the food was expensive and sub par so we brought a picnic lunch and had it on our journey.  Let me tell you, I am glad it was a beautiful day in Montserrat because we did a. lot. of hiking. And I don’t hike. This was a blisters in your sneakers hike.  A hike where walking down hurts.  Even if you don’t hike, I think you will get the picture.  Okay, enough talking, look at some pretty pictures I took while I lugged my camera up and down the mountain:

Isn’t Montserrat pretty?