monika morgan

Taking a day out of what was already too short a stay in Barcelona didn’t feel like the smartest decision – until we got on the motorway. Pretty soon we could see the mountains and the closer we got to Montserrat, the more I knew it was the right decision. Actually, the best solution would’ve been to extend the stay in the area altogether but time is rarely on our side…

I’d heard about the beautiful hikes in Montserrat back when I lived in Barcelona many years ago as a student, but somehow never went to explore it back then. Too busy studying, I suppose, the way only exchange students are (read: studying the local bar culture). So, following a couple of days revisiting the old stomping grounds around L’Eixample and Poblenou, we headed for Montserrat and I had something new to experience.

And quite an experience it was.

Montserrat means serrated mountains, which makes sense when you look at the range from a distance, but up close the peaks and formations are round and hefty, more like Nordic trolls. As whimsical as nature gets.

There are various hiking routes to explore and you can minimise walking altogether by taking a little ferrocarril (funicular) to one of the tops, but the trek is fantastic. It makes for the most unusual walk and isn’t difficult as far as rocky trails go. Sweaty, granted. But not difficult. And the views are just stunning.

Something that’s almost as fascinating as the bizarre geological formations in Montserrat is an aspect of the place I knew very little about when I decided to go there. Religion.

A couple of days before, still in Barcelona, we had lunch with my local friend and when we mentioned the hiking plans, he said: “Ah, Montserrat. Beautiful. And you’ll need to touch the ball.”

Out of the many different directions this conversation could have taken, I wasn’t quite expecting to hear that people rush to Montserrat’s monastery en masse to see the statue of the Virgin of Montserrat and touch the orb of the earth she holds in her hand.

Or that monks do indeed still reside there.

Living outside any religious community on a daily basis, I often forget the huge role it can play – something I’m weirdly attuned to when travelling, though, having grown up in a place with heavy Catholic heritage and tradition. Montserrat is seeped in it too. And so were we, for a couple of days, as there’s no escape from the general feeling of the significant religious importance Montserrat holds – nowadays for Christianity, but in the past home to a temple built by the Romans to worship Venus, which seems like a big jump as far as spiritual scene is concerned. Even out of season, there was this pilgrimage feel to it.

Which is why when we arrived outside the monastery in Montserrat, I had this brief but intense flashback to when a month earlier we drove up a mountain in Montenegro to visit the Ostrog Monastery, a cathedral carved in the rock. The last part of the journey is a 15-minute walk up steps which most people conquered barefoot. At the foot of the monastery, we saw dozens and dozens of tents and make-shift camps set up by pilgrims. Feeling somewhat out of place and fighting off a sudden onset of a slightly eerie atmosphere, we did this thing of joining a queue not really knowing what we were queuing for and it took us into one of the chapels. It’s pretty impressive to see such a huge architectural project undertaken in such a remote place. After, we spotted another queue leading into another part of the building, but we decided not to join it and head back instead. Had we joined the second queue, I later learnt, we’d have found ourselves lining up for the Holy Communion. Careful with queues, is the lesson here.

But back to Montserrat. The religious flavour permeated our trip on many levels. Out of convenience more than anything else, we booked a stay right in the main square, in Hotel Abat Cisneros, an old monastery building previously offering accommodation to pilgrims. We had a huge window opening right to the main square, so buzzy during the day and so silent in the evening. We had an underground restaurant serving great local food and wine, in quantities reflecting that hallmark generosity towards those travelling. We had fresh mountain air and early morning bird song. And we had a simple bedroom sporting two single beds and a bible on the table between them.

Brief as our visit was, Montserrat delivered everything a wholesome trip calls for: incredible views, a sense of adventure and just the right amount of surprise.