Remember the boat party in Figueres that we blogged about a few days ago? One of our shipmates was from Barcelona and he suggested that if we had time and wanted to get out of town that we visit Montserrat. We decided put Plan B bike packing on hold while the weather is great to go hiking and our friends' suggestion sounded perfect.
Montserrat is a mountainous region about 1 1/2 hours by train from Barcelona and the name essentially means serrated mountain; the name is easy to figure out once you see the front part of the range.
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| Montserrat from the train |
We hopped a train and headed inland. Montserrat is now a Spanish National Park (or equivalent) but it also has a fairly long association with religious activities with the Catholic Church. The main train from Barcelona drops you off at a secondary station where you have a choice of either riding an aerial tram to the top, or getting onto a rail-link cogged train that takes you up to the village, which is mostly a monastery but no also has lots of tourist features like restaurants and a hotel. The gondola looked a bit sketchy to me, kind of like it was built in the early 1960s, so we opted for the cogged train.
The train goes up a pretty sharply and takes about 20 minutes to reach the village.
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| Looking down at a train coming up |
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| In the village there are all sorts of things to do... |
Once to the village you can take a funicular further up, or hike (a funicular is a train that is pulled by a cable and pulley system). Our tickets were good for the funicular so we skipped that part of the hike and went up.
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| Riding up and passing the car going down |
The funicular is steep, about 40 degrees.
Once to the top of the funicular there are many hiking options so we just set off on a path. The rocks are sedimentary; the mountains used to be, millennia ago, a seabed. Even so, the rock is very hard and there are lots of climbers in the area.
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| Sedimentary rock |
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| From the top of the funicular |
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| Climbers atop a nearby spire |
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| Not sure what this one is called, but it reminds of us Monkey Face at Smith Rocks |
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| Unique rock formations |
We hike along some trails and then went off piste and hiked to the top of some stone formations we call "swirl tops":
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| Swirl Tops |
The hiking was awesome, as were the views toward the valley
Reluctantly, we turned back and rode the funicular down, then the cog train, and finally the intercity train back to Barcelona. Montserrat was a perfect way to spend a day.
Tomorrow, Plan B!
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