I woke up at 7 the next morning and made my way to the train station. The city was so quiet in the morning, a completely different environment. I got on the 8.15 train, and slowly made my way away from the city. The scenery gradually began t change; urban turned into fields, which turned into mountains. A bit over an hour later I was the bottom of Mont Serrat.
Mont Serrat is a very old abbey, built very high in the mountains. It’s a very old Benedictine abbey, and also has a statue of the black Virgin Mary which is highly revered. It’s a bit of a tourist attraction, so there’s a funicular railway to it, which I took.
I then got a rack railway higher up the mountain, and from there started walking. For the first 30 minutes I went completely the wrong way and ended up at the ruins of some houses used by monks centuries ago, and a tiny chapel (see picture).
It was getting hot at this point, around 30 degrees, so I was pretty glad I was doing this in the morning rather than in the afternoon when it’d get even hotter.
I returned to the start of the trail, and went on the one I intended to go on originally to the top of the mountain. The path lasted for about an hour and a half, and led to the highest peak on the range. On the walk I went past countless lizards, skinks and butterflies, and was eventually rewarded with views like this:
After a lunch of chorizo (a type of salami), bread and water I started to head down to the abbey, bypassing the rack railway. Another hour and a bit later of more stunning scenery I arrived back at the abbey. After a brief look around at the incredible architecture I headed back to the city for a night of festival at one of the cities biggest free festivals of the year encompassing the entire city.
I’ll leave with a picture of the abbey, taken from above.
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