Short Spanish trips, Sat, 01 Aug 2020 | written by Jemmon
Jemma and Simon at a Mountain, Temple in Europe, Spain

1 August 2020

  • Santa Cecilia monastery
  • The Monstrosity of Montserrat
  • The Monastery of Montserrat
  • The miraculous figure
  • Ermita de Sant Benet
  • Sant Jeroni
  • Sant Jeroni
  • Sant Jeroni
  • Goat!

The day didn’t start well. When we finally left Barca, it was not in the best moods. It’s good we went though, nothing refreshes the mind like a couple days of hiking.

On the way to Montserrat, we found the small monastery of St Cecilia – unfortunately closed. We drove up a bit further and parked by the road in front of the paid parking lot. It was a bit of a hike from there to the monastery, but hey, nothing compared to the hiking we did later.

It’s really sad that the first thing that you see when you get there, is not the Monastery of Montserrat. Instead, it’s the Monstrosity of Montserrat. That’s the official name, by the way, not the ‘Mirador dels Apostols’ they say it is. It’s a horrible restaurant and viewing platform complex built in a the famous Don’t-Give-A-Fuck-Just-Make-It-Quick-And-Cheap style of mid-20th century. It is an absolute disgrace, and I wouldn’t blame anyone who would want to just blow it up.

We then spent some time in the monastery area, but the only things that were open were the basilica itself, and a video tour ‘museum’. It’s a real shame that the main museum was closed (damn you Corona!), because it holds some fantastic art. But then, the whole place is pretty empty and normally you would expect huge numbers of tourists. So I guess we’re lucky all in all, best visit a remote monastery and hermitages when there aren’t so many people around!

With nothing much left to do for the rest of the day, we decided to go on a short hike to a spot where we could see the sunset. The initial ascent was quite a challenge, especially in this heat and on an empty stomach. But after some gazpacho and bread we made it and went for a short trek along some of the hermitages scattered around the mountain. The views were spectacular! And we saw what we thought was a sculpture of a huge mountain goat on the path ahead, but when we got there, it was gone – must have been a very still actual goat!

It soon turned out that we won’t get a sunset view from the path we chose. We decided we still have the time to go to St Jeroni, the Western-most summit from which we could get a good view. It was a pretty fast trek, but we got there in good time – in fact, we were first and scooped the best seats. What a spectacular view!

It got dark quicker than we thought, so the 1.5h way back was heavily aided by Jemma’s phone torch. But what a fantastic atmosphere there, at night – no wonder they chose it for a holy place! And then, the goat! Massive horns, and he just stood there, in the middle of the path. Wouldn’t budge, not scared of humans at all! But fortunately throwing a stone in its vicinity sent it away, though it was looking at us from the bushes as we were passing by…

Back in the van by midnight, we found a spot with a sunrise view and set our alarm for 6:40am.

2 August 2020

The night was a bit of a challenge, as we parked by the road. Cars are nothing, but the bloody motorcycles make so much noise! Anyway, the sunrise was pretty amazing, and we even got some sleep again after.

Having done the ascent the previous day, today we got lazy and decided to take the train up. We had the whole other side of the mountain to see, with a number of little chapels and hermitages. And OMG were they amazing! Especially the hermitage of St Joan – cut in the sheer rock face, exactly how I thought the life of a Father of a Desert would look like.

We visited a few more spots – Montserrat is littered with them, it’s a whole little community of hermits that must have lived there. So half-hermits, really. The whole thing made Simon reminisce his high-school thoughts about just throwing it all and moving to a cave in the desert…

At the top, we had a nice call with Miron for his belated birthday. It all turned out to be a perfect mix of walking and just chilling in the rare patches of shade on the way. On the way down, we saw the Monastery from some great angles, and decided to go down to one more temple – Santa Cova. Alas, also closed for the pandemic, but a great walk nevertheless. Tired and much happier than at the start!

  • Ermita de Sant Joan
  • Ermita de Sant Joan
  • Ermita de Sant Joan
  • Ermita de Sant Joan
  • Ermita de Sant Joan
  • Ermita de Sant Joan
  • Ermita de Santa Magdalena
  • Ermita de Sant Miquel
  • Creu de Sant Miquel
  • Santa Cova de Montserrat