I signed up of a day long tour, took a cab to the starting location and set out with a dozen tourists with bus driver David and tour guide Richard for Montserrat National Park. The mountains were formed some 20 million years ago and a monastery and hermitages were built here hundreds of years ago.
A teleferico (cable car) and this Funicular brought people up from lower parking areas to the central plaza, main buildings of the monastery and the cathedral, but our brought us to that level.
At the recommendation of our tour guide, I then took the funicular that you can barely see in this photo, up to the top of the mountains where some dozen individual hermitages had been built for the monks to live in solitude.
Once at the top, I spent about an hour exploring and walking around.
Although there were no guardrails, the trails were easy walking and more than wide enough for cars/trucks to service the outlying hermitages.
I only went as far as the Sant Joan hermitage (that is Catalan; I believe it would be San Juan in Spanish or Saint John in English).
I could see the hermitage of Sant Onofre above me, but did not go there.
Back down on the lower level, I explored the shops, plazas and museums.
Since it was Sunday, the park was packed with people. There were various groups of performers, including both musicians and acrobats. Here is a short video of one of the choirs.
The line to the cathedral was extremely long, so I only took a couple of photos from outside.
As I continued to explore, I also looked down and saw the cable car and other infrastructure to get people up and down the mountains.
There was also a memorial to those who sacrificed during the Spanish Civil War of 1936 - 1939. Unfortunately, the photos are not that great because of the shadows from the overhanging trees.
We then got back on the bus for the hour drive to the Artcava vineyard and winery. We got a tour of the 800 year old farmhouse at the center, a demonstration on how cava is made, and then the opportunity to sample three varieties - they were extremely refreshing and tasteful, so I ordered a case of six of them to be shipped to our home in Portland.
Then it was back to the hotel for one last night. While I knew that Denise (one of the Anglo volunteers) was staying at the hotel Sunday evening, I was surprised to find Elizabet, one of the Spaniards there with Denise. They had already started a light dinner, so I joined them - but Denise had tickets for a Flamenco show and left about ten minutes later. I sat and chatted for about an hour with Elizabet, and then the restaurant packed up leftovers for Elizabet to take home with her.
I contacted Denise later to confirm breakfast Monday at 7:00 before she left for the airport and her flights back to Boston. And so my brief time in Barcelona has ended, but I really enjoyed Day Town and hope to come back to do it again.
A teleferico (cable car) and this Funicular brought people up from lower parking areas to the central plaza, main buildings of the monastery and the cathedral, but our brought us to that level.
At the recommendation of our tour guide, I then took the funicular that you can barely see in this photo, up to the top of the mountains where some dozen individual hermitages had been built for the monks to live in solitude.
Once at the top, I spent about an hour exploring and walking around.
Although there were no guardrails, the trails were easy walking and more than wide enough for cars/trucks to service the outlying hermitages.
I only went as far as the Sant Joan hermitage (that is Catalan; I believe it would be San Juan in Spanish or Saint John in English).
I could see the hermitage of Sant Onofre above me, but did not go there.
Back down on the lower level, I explored the shops, plazas and museums.
Since it was Sunday, the park was packed with people. There were various groups of performers, including both musicians and acrobats. Here is a short video of one of the choirs.
As I continued to explore, I also looked down and saw the cable car and other infrastructure to get people up and down the mountains.
There was also a memorial to those who sacrificed during the Spanish Civil War of 1936 - 1939. Unfortunately, the photos are not that great because of the shadows from the overhanging trees.
We then got back on the bus for the hour drive to the Artcava vineyard and winery. We got a tour of the 800 year old farmhouse at the center, a demonstration on how cava is made, and then the opportunity to sample three varieties - they were extremely refreshing and tasteful, so I ordered a case of six of them to be shipped to our home in Portland.
Then it was back to the hotel for one last night. While I knew that Denise (one of the Anglo volunteers) was staying at the hotel Sunday evening, I was surprised to find Elizabet, one of the Spaniards there with Denise. They had already started a light dinner, so I joined them - but Denise had tickets for a Flamenco show and left about ten minutes later. I sat and chatted for about an hour with Elizabet, and then the restaurant packed up leftovers for Elizabet to take home with her.
I contacted Denise later to confirm breakfast Monday at 7:00 before she left for the airport and her flights back to Boston. And so my brief time in Barcelona has ended, but I really enjoyed Day Town and hope to come back to do it again.
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