Afternoon at Montserrat

People always talk about how one of the great things about San Francisco is how close to nature you are. In less than 20 minutes you can be at the beach, state parks, wetlands, or mountains. Turns out people love Barcelona for that reason too, and one of the nicest places is Montserrat, a monastery and natural park.

We drove there, but you can also take a train. Both leave you at the base of the mountain, where we took a hanging yellow cable car up to the monastery complex and start of the hiking trails.

The monastery is old, but visited often and now has other buildings around it, including a couple stores and restaurants. Judging by the number of buses that can fit in the parking lot, it gets busy. But we were there on a cold afternoon in January, and saw only a few families and young hikers.

After visiting the Montserrat Virgin (which makes this place one of Spain’s most popular pilgrimage destinations), we went for a bit of hiking up behind the monastery. The sun was already behind the mountain when we got there, and as the shadows got longer, the temperature dropped. This made for amazing silhouette pictures, but it also made us really glad we both had hats, scarves and gloves!

We plan to go back another day, getting there early so we can hear a boy’s choir sing at mass, and then take a longer hike into the mountains. Can’t wait!