Montserrat Monastery, Spain

Visiting Montserrat Monastery north of Barcelona is worth at least a day trip, if not an overnight. The monastery has been an important pilgrimage site for over a thousand years. It’s easy to travel to and is absolutely spectacular. If you like hiking, it offers some of the most breathtaking hiking imaginable.

History

The Montserrat monastery is a Benedictine monastery and was built in the 1850s, although there has been a monastery on the site since the 11th century. Currently, 30 monks live on the premises to carry on the Benedictine spiritual tradition. The monastery is nestled in spectacular steep rocky peaks at 2,400 feet.

Getting There

Montserrat is an easy day trip from Barcelona. You can take an early morning train from Barcelona that takes about an hour and a half and passes along beautiful scenery. Then you can take either a cable car or the rack railway uphill to the monastery. I like the cable car for breathtaking mountain scenery. Once at the monastery, you can take a funicular above the monastery to hike the beautiful paths that lead to Sant Joan Chapel and to the Sacred Cave. Then instead of taking the funicular back down, I recommend hiking the paved pathway that undulates down to the monastery for even more breathtaking views.

The trails above Montserrat offer beautiful views in every direction. You literally feel like you are on top of the world and close to God. From the top of the funicular, there are paved pathways that take in you either direction – to the San Joan Chapel and above the chapel or there are dirt trails that lead out above the monastery along the mountains, and finally to return, you can walk the paved pathway that descends rather steeply down to the monastery for about a 45-minute walk down. The trails are well marked, you cannot get lost, and offer stunning scenery that you will never forget. It is well worth exploring, just make sure to leave enough time to visit the Basilica and town, before heading back to Barcelona. Be sure to take an early morning train from Barcelona to the monastery to give you enough time to both visit the basilica and hike the hills.