Cultural: Day Trip to Montserrat

Another cultural trip that I took was a day tip to the monastery in the mountains, the famous Montserrat. Out of all the trips I took, I was amazed by the sheer beauty of this place. Aside from the obvious thought of, "How did they manage to build a church in the mountains?" I was amazed that the church is still in use today.

When you arrive at the mountain, the first monument you see is a half circle of arches that overlooks the valley below the mountain. We arrived at Montserrat early in the morning so the fog was still rolling over the hills in the beautiful picture below. After passing the arches you head toward the actual basilica of Montserrat .

The areas surrounding the basilica use many of the architectural techniques that we have discussed throughout our class. The building contained a mixture of both Roman and Gothic arches due to the many times the basilica and its surrounding features were renovated throughout time.

The picture on the left is the facade of the basilica and the one on the right is the inside of the church. The Monastery is famous because a long time ago, a monk found a depiction of the Virgin Mary of Catalonia in a cave in the mountain range. After all these years they have preserved parts of the stone from the cave and incorporated it in a depiction of the Virgin Mary of Catalonia within the basilica.

Outside of the abbey of the basilica and surrounding buildings there are paths that lead to better views of the valley and even other churches. We decided to venture out to one of the highest points to see the cross of San Miguel which can be seen in the picture below.

Montserrat was a wonderful experience and I would recommend it to anyone visiting Barcelona as it contains some of Catalonia's oldest pieces of history.