Montserrat

 People have written books about Montserrat so it might be hard to put it into a blog post.

Montserrat is part of a mountain range not far from here, named for the rocks
that look serrated, or jagged.  Or even a bit like the Boulder Flatirons.

To get to and from the monastery from the train we could have hiked, taken a rack-rail train, or gone on the cable car, which is what we chose.

This picture was taken from the station while we were waiting to go up.

This was taken inside the cable car on the way down.

Most people think of the monastery of Montserrat, which we were also happy to visit.  

Part of the attraction there is the Virgin of Montserrat, which was carved almost 2000 years ago, hidden away, and later found by shepherds who saw a light coming from the hills, or the cave in which she had been hidden.  It is called a Black Madonna, but scientists think it was lighter when it was carved.  We saw her from afar but chose not to stand in line to get closer or touch her hand.

We did wait in the sanctuary for the end of the service to we could hear a short concert performed by the boys' choir.  A. was amazed that they looked to be his age or younger.

We did not have to wait in line to ride the funicular to the top,

maybe because the views were not so great.

We were still glad to have done the hike, but we might go back when it is clearer.

Another highlight of the day was actually making it there.  The station close to our house did not have a traditional card reader and we didn't know about the secondary one, which meant when we arrived at the station, where we had less than ten minutes to change trains, we couldn't get through because our cards not been authorized.  We got lucky and an employee was found and someone else explained the problem.  Even though we were changing at stations of the same name, it was a bit of a haul to the other platform/station, plus we had to buy tickets, which weren't available at the first station.  With trains running only once an hour we were very lucky to make it before the doors closed!!  A big bonus was finding a place to sit!  It was not so different on the way home (minus finding a place to sit), but it was only after a mad dash from one station to the other that we learned our second train was about fifteen minutes late (of course that is better than the first one being late and the second one on time!).