Montserrat is a little over an hour outside of Barcelona by train and cable car. It is the site of the Benedictine abbey, Santa Maria de Montserrat, which hosts the Virgin of Montserrat sanctuary. You buy your ticket, as in most stations in Barcelona, from a machine and then pray you’ve done it correctly (in this case, a ticket that covers both the train ride and cable car, and return).

When we got there, we encountered a wedding party at the cable car station (who had driven, of course), and experienced their excitement as they rode up to the famous church with us. Montserrat (the serrated mountain) is really a place at the end of the world (see my photos), and I can easily imagine monks immersing themselves in mediation and struggling with the hard tasks of living in such a remote location.

My favorite moment was not riding up mountain or seeing the famous religious site, but in sitting in the small chapel behind the statue of the Black Madonna and praying with a couple of pilgrims.

El Born, we discovered tonight, is quite upscale with trendy bars, cafés, and restaurants. It’s a lot nicer and less crowded than the Barri Gòtic area where we are staying. In a wine bar near Santa Maria del Mar, we ran into a Dutch chef from Maastricht who recommended a tapas place where we had dinner. It was so over the top I’m embarrassed to tell you what we ate. Suffice it to say it began with olives, yucca chips, and mussels in wine sauce, included frogs legs and lobster sushi, and ended with duck liver and various desserts. Naturally, I got lost after leaving the cafe, so we had our walking tour of El Born at night. Tomorrow we’re planning on seeing Montserrat if we can figure out which train station to use (there are several choices and no one seems to know which one services Montserrat, although the consensus seems to be Plaça d’Espanya).