Barcelona5 – Sunday - Montserrat

We decided to make a day trip out to Montserrat to experience some of the mountains. It was not as I was expecting.  I was expecting craggy peaks like the Pyrenees, but these were more worn and rounded.  The name Montserrat actually means serrated mountain and describes the parallel serrations in the stone formations of the mountain.  After a quick breakfast, we hopped the metro to Espanya metro station and found the R5 train line toward Montserrat.  A website had warned us that it might be hard to find, but coming from the metro it was actually easy.  A man there spoke English well and explained that the package deal did not include the air cable car, but instead used the funicular (i.e. train up the hill).  We’d also read that the views from the air cable car were not to be missed, so we opted for that route even though it cost more.  Our train arrived in about 45 minutes, 35 of which Theo played ipod Touch.  I made him put it away for the last 10 minutes and look out the window at the beautiful scenery.  He begrudgingly obliged.  The ride up the mountain was a bit of a disappointment.  The car was quite full and we were left with only a view down the mountain. 

On the walk up to the monastery a helicopter was taking off and flew directly over us.  I was quick enough to snap it before it flew off, and I think it turned into a neat shot..

I was expecting a small tucked away monastery in the mountainside, but instead we found a whole village.  Including a grocery store and everything.  Lucky for us, as we’d forgotten our water and we wanted to do a 3 hour hike to the top of the mountain.  Turns out even if we’d brought all of our water it wouldn’t have been enough, as we bought a 6.25 Liter bottler of water at the grocery and went through the whole thing on our hike.  The information booth lady told us we had the option of riding the funicular up and saving most of the climb part of the hike.  With the 4 kids, we thought that was a no-brainer.  The funicular up had a glass ceiling to allow for views.  Here’s Theo enjoying the view in the funicular.

We knew we’d made a good choice with the funicular as it just kept going and going and going.  Here you can see the height we gained… (the village is in the middle of the photo far below).

The kids each spotted interesting things along the way.  Maeve smelled some pretty flowers, Theo found a munched on leaf, and they all enjoyed building rock towers at some point during our hike…

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At the midway point, Kate and the little ones were beat.  And the info lady had warned us that the final 25 minutes of ascent was much more strenuous.  Kate gifted me and agreed to head down with the kids.  But Zeke had the legs and interest in going to the peak with me.  Zeke and I made pretty good time heading up without the others.  And spent as much time as we thought possible enjoying the view from the top, where we were actually able to see the communication tower on mount Tibidabo back in Barcelona! 

We stopped a little lower down at our own private spot to just snack on some corn nuts and soak in the tranquility and view.  Here we are soaking it in (note the aforementioned corn nut in Zeke’s nostril)

Zeke had been carrying a stick and a rock with him.  I didn’t know what he had planned, but he insisted that he needed some time before we continued back down.  He ended up creating this rather impressive floating rock formation.   On the way down, I had to laugh when we came upon these rock formations from Theo, Maeve and Janie.  Kate made sure I didn’t miss them by adding the kids names on leaves.

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We tried to keep the pace quick on the way down.  We started “racing” down any of the steeper stairs to make time and were jokingly referring to our old monikers back in Ronda… Goat boy and Goat Sensei referring to our sure feet.  Here’s goat boy posing at the bridge just prior to getting back to the village.

We peaked into the church and had another opportunity to light a candle for my mom, and also an opportunity for me to talk about another one of those quirky points of the catholic religion.  The train ride home was completely packed and we all had to stand for 45 minutes.  OUCH.  Kate was holding Maeve for half of that as she conked out.  And who could blame her.  Her little 4 year old legs made the whole hike.  I had to ask Kate aferwards if she’d even ever asked to be carried.  Nope.  WOW.  Sleep well Maeve.