The day we spent in Montserrat was one of the best days of our trip. It combined our love for travel and seeing new things with our love of being active and out in nature. Montserrat is a mountain located not too far from Barcelona; so we did it as a day trip from there. The mountain is approximately 4000 ft high, 7 miles long, and 3.5 miles wide. A series of jagged peaks run across the length of the mountain, hence the name “Montserrat”, which is a Catalan word which literally means “saw mountain”.

To get to Montserrat, we took a train from Barcelona’s Plaça de Espanya station. It’s about an hour-long train ride from Barcelona to the foot of the mountain. After getting off the train, we then got on a cable car (Montserrat Aeri), which takes you up to the monastery on the mountain.

Where you get off the cable car is just steps away from the monastery, which is built into the mountainside. The monastery started as the Hermitage of Santa Maria in 1025. The stories of miracles performed on the mountain has resulted in many pilgrimages to this place over the last thousand years.

After checking out the monastery, we set off for the part we were most looking forward to…hiking the mountain!  We decided to trek to the farthest point, Sant Jeroni. It was quite the climb up, and the higher we went up, the more breathtaking the views became.

As we made our way up, thick clouds were rolling in and out. The mountain has these crazy rock formations and it was stunning to see them go in and out of view as the clouds came and went. It was very windy that day; it reminded me of the hiking we did in Patagonia on our honeymoon.

As we made our way back down, the clouds dissipated and the sun started shining through again. We took a different route down the mountain, which provided spectacular views of the surrounding countryside.

We knew our hike was nearing its end when we started to see the monastery again. It was a fantastic day on the mountain!