Monserrat: the monastery in the clouds
We were staying just outside Barcelona in a place called Mataro but we have been to Barcelona a few times together so thought this time we’d visit places we haven’t been to and Monserrat fitted that bill.
The campsite had a free bus into Barcelona so we caught the first bus at 9.15am (quite a feat for us!) then we needed to get a Metro for a quick 5 stop trip to Placa d’ Espanya station, easy I hear you say, but only if you get on the Metro going in the right direction!!! We knew we were going to wrong way as soon as the doors shut! We got off at the next station, had to buy another ticket and get across to the other platform, then once we were in Espanya we found the platform for Monserrat and bought our tickets.
There was a confusing array of tickets: just the train, train + cable car, train + rack railway, train + rack railway + funicular, all of these also had the option of an audio guide and /and or lunch in the Cafeteria, which notched up the price quite considerably, of course.
We opted for train + rack railway + funicular + audio guide at €35 each. The journey was about an hour through not so nice outskirts of Barcelona, my hubby slept most of the way, in fact he’d slept most of the way during the 50 min bus trip into Barcelona. I wish I had that ability – travel to him must seem like something out of a science fiction TV programme where you just say, ‘Beam me up Scottie,’ and you mystically travel instantly to somewhere else. Journeys for my hubby are mostly like that, get in at the starting point, sit down, fall asleep and wake up at destination. Viola! Anyway, I digress.
We disembarked at the last but one stop on the train journey and all piled onto the rack railway which took us high into the mountains. We were tipped out into the bright sunshine at Monserrat, I was surprised to see so many tall modern looking buildings all around us.
I popped into the Tourist Information Office and picked up a map, the whole place isn’t very big, basically there are a number of apartment blocks / hotels the museum and the monastery/ Basilica.
She drew a large curve on the map and said the Church with the Madonna is here. We walked up round through the archway and found ourselves on a large open plaza with the Basilica in front of us.
As we made our way through the outer hall which had some very large impressive sculpture, we noticed a very long queue to our right. Unlike Santiago I didn’t feel any compunction to joint it, I guessed it was for some relic but of course it was the queue to touch the Black Madonna. We didn’t feel that we needed a miracle that day, so we just walked round the Basilica which had 13 little chapels all around the outer edges dedicated to various saints.
The Black Madonna was high up above the altar and if you sat in one of the pews and looked up you could see people walking up to her, genuflecting then touching her hand and probably asking for their miracle, but if they took too long a henchman in black hurried them along. I think I’m getting too blasé about relics.
Down the far side we came across a little chapel which had a really interesting modern sculpture of Christ on the cross, well it was an impression of him on the cross, and it was very arresting. The whole room seemed a million miles from the frantic queuing and selfie taking. Maybe I’m not as blasé as I thought.
It seems there is a bit of a theme going on in the Basilica, various lamps have been donated over the last 50-60 years and they have displayed them all the way around the church. Some of them are amazing.
The monastery, church and most of the buildings in Monserrat have been reconstructed but it originally dates back to the 9th century, despite all of the tourists it is still a ‘working’ monastery which houses over 80 monks.
Next we took the Funicular to St Joan, it was almost perpendicular (well that is what funiculars do). At the top was a viewing lounge and a 5 km walk round the very top of the crags. We were running out of time (and to be honest didn’t fancy a 5km walk in 30+ degree heat) so we took some photos and went back down.
What are the chances of this happening? When we were on a boat trip in Barcelona a few days previously we’d sat next to an American guy who started chatting. Who walked up behind us in the queue for the rack train back down at the end of the afternoon but the same guy. He then talked to / at us for the whole of the one hour journey (funny how my hubby didn’t get much sleep on that journey!)
We managed not to mess up the Metro on the way back and caught our bus with time to spare.
One thing that really made my day (it’s very sad) but when we were in the Metro station having just bought our return tickets to Catalunya Square a Spanish couple at the next ticket machine asked for help, by that time I was an ‘old hand’ at these machines and managed to buy their tickets for them in no time at all. How chuffed was I! (yes, they were considerably older than us even if they did speak the language the machines were new to them but it was my one ‘kind deed for the day’ 😊
Lovely posting. I felt for you with the wrong direction taking – I have experience of this in recent months while walking-wandering and trying to find my way back to the car. It can be a challenge to my ‘everything happens for a reason’ impulse hahaha.
You’re definitely experiencing authentic local culture with your public transport experiences (I also would have felt chuffed to give local/machine information to help somebody else!). Before we started vanning, what with living in the Forest ‘n all, we hadn’t used public transport for … decades. Very laughable our first attempts at engaging with it, but now experts and the people watching/listening opportunities seem to be infinite.
Love your commentary about relics and their impact. Christ’s face and the shadow of the cross two of my favourite photos here; the others being the rail track and the ‘transparent’ head sculpture.
Accidental ‘companion’ reunions – again, I felt your pain. We had a similar experience between Birmingham Airport and Fuerteventura, when we accidentally showed interest in the fact that a fellow female traveller had a boat as part of her hold-luggage. This resulted in re-seeing her and her talking at us for over an hour and us missing some outward-going delightful scenery. We were ecstatic when we realised she wouldn’t be actually staying in our hotel hahaha
Like you we hadn’t used public transport much in the past so it’s been a ‘learning curve’, we’ve found that people have been so helpful, obviously we stick out like sore thumbs as being tourists (can’t imagine why!) but people have been so helpful telling us what stop to get off at, shouting at the driver to keep the door open for us when the bus has been full and in Barcelona warning us to watch our bags and the number of times that young people have got up to offer Jim their seat has been really nice (although Jim is a bit upset haha)
Haha! Very polite young people! Yes, we also have had some lovely assistance from folk who are much more public transport savvy than us. The first of our li’l helpers was a woman who had to have been 200 years old … and she soooo looked after us lol