Montserrat for Beginners

We spent today visiting the monastery of Montserrat. We awoke to rain, so after a quick coffee and nosh at the cafe next door, we headed out to find an umbrella. Not many stores open that early in them morning in Spain. I'm used to Target which opens at 8 am. However, after getting rather wet (jackets and ball caps), we found ourselves at the Tourist Information office beneath the Plaça Catalunya, which opened at 9 and stocked umbrellas. They say Barcelona all over them, but they kept us dry.

Umbrellas in hand, we then made our way to the Julia Travel Agency where we exchanged our voucher for tickets and met our guide, Jordi, and boarded the bus to Montserrat. Jordi (the English version of his name is George) – and it's a soft 'j' like Zsa Zsa, not a hard 'j' as in 'jump' – kept us entertained with facts about the city, industry, countryside, history, and the monastery along the way..

We went as far as the little village at the foot of the mountain and then took the cog-wheel railway to the top while others continued on the bus. And it's not really the top. There is a funicular that will take you the rest of the way to the real top of the mountain. However, the clouds persisted and the top was enveloped in clouds so we stuck to the precincts.

Fascinating place. Originally built around 1000 AD, it was destroyed by Napolean's army and the present monastery was rebuilt around 1900, making very efficient use of the space on the shelf on the mountainside. There's even a small hotel. The boys sing gloriously and the new pipe organ is quite grand. The basilica itself is a bit ornate (check out the many, many chandeliers – each different) but not overpowering. We saw the Black Madonna from afar and did not stand in line to parade down the side aisle and up behind the apse to touch her for a blessing. Warning, if camera flashes disturb you, no one follows the 'No Camera' rule inside.

We finally returned to town after an hour's delay on the highway. Not that they'd use them on a highway, but around town there is a scheme of temporary-use bicycles. For 30 euros a year, one is given a card which will allow you to borrow a bicycle for 2 hours' use. You drop it off at a depot near your destination and someone else may use it for their trip. Users number nearly 200,000 and there are many dozen depots around the city.

Since it was late, we decided to walk the Ramblas as we had done last night. This time we walked all the way to the port, passing many outdoor cafes, flower vendors, hawkers of toys, and local folks who dressed as statues and cadged coins from those who took pictures with them. Some were quite good.

We eventually found a place for sangria and a bite of dinner and afterwards went searching for a better sangria. Eventually found the cafe where we'd lunched on Thursday who made their sangria with a darker red wine. Ordered a few tapas to munch with the sangria and listened to a couple of guys debated how to spend the rest of the night – and their complaints about the price of their wine.

About that time it began to rain again. After a tremendous flash of lightning and peal f thunder right overhead, a deluge began. As the cafe was closing up, we took our umbrellas and headed back to the hotel, hopping over flooded gutters and discovering that our umbrellas weren't entirely waterproof in heavy rain!

Safely back in our room, toweled off, we fell asleep. Rather, I fell asleep while Michael went off in search of other cruisers staying at the same hotel and congregating in the first floor lounge.