Spain, Part 8 - Montserrat

Please excuse my pause in blogging - I've been busy. But, as you can see, the Spain posts continue. Don't worry, though, I'm almost done and I have a goal to finish blogging about Spain before we head to Utah on Wednesday for the wedding of Mr. Frisby's sister.

So, on to the matter at hand. On Monday, we had plans to take a day trip to Montserrat. Montserrat is a little monastery/community nestled into a mountain top. It's difficult to get to. You take a train from Barcelona to the base of the mountain and from there, you have two options to get up to the monastery. One is to take the cable car up. The other is to take the rack rail up. Oh, you don't know what a rack rail is? Me neither. Since Mr. Frisby and I aren't afraid of heights, we opted to take the cable car up, dangling from a cable hundreds of feet in the air all the way up the mountain. It was awesome!


See the monastery, nestled up there in the mountain?


That little yellow thing is the cable car, coming down to get us


Here I am outside the cable car after getting up the mountain


Mr. Frisby and I outside the cable car drop off


The very top of the mountain

After we got off the cable car, we headed over to check out the monastery. We poked around the monastery for a little bit and then decided to ride the funicular up one of the mountains near the monastery. (To learn more about funiculars, please click here) The view from the top was beautiful and we could see little hermitages scattered around the mountains.


Mr. Frisby in front of the monastery


The monastery church


Me on the funicular. I look scared, but I wasn't. So, I'm not sure what this look was all about.



Mr. Frisby and I at the top of the mountain


Looking out over the mountaintop


Looking down the mountain at the monastery


Looking down the mountain at the funicular coming back up

After checking out the view from the mountain, we headed back down to the monastery. We got some food for lunch at a little market and then we headed back over to the church to hear the monastery boys' choir sing. We listened to the concert for a little while and then decided to head back to Barcelona. So, we took the cable car back down, enjoying the beautiful scenery on the way, and then we caught our train back to the city. Montserrat was beautiful and was an awesome day trip. Definitely one of the highlights of Spain for me.


Me in the cable car


The views from the cable car were incredible

When we got back to our hotel, we decided to check out Barcelona's big food market, La Boqueria. It was pretty amazing. A huge open air market where they sell produce, meat, candy, chocolate, ice cream - everything! After that we just walked along La Rambla, enjoying the crowds, street performers, and vendor stands.


The entrance to the food market


Walking down La Rambla


Street Performers on La Rambla. They were dressed up as Transformers.


That's me in front of one of the pet vendors. Yep, they had little stands in the street where they sold pets. Pigeons, chickens, ferrets, rabbits - all for sale, right on the street.

We had wanted to go to a big park in the city that afternoon, but instead we spent lots of time on the pone with Delta changing my flight, trying to change Mr. Frisby's flight, and seeing what options we might have to get me home as soon as possible. My scheduled flight for the next morning would be cancelled, so the next available flight was for Sunday - five days later. We booked that flight and then found a cheaper hotel for me to stay at in a different part of the city. Then Mr. Frisby tried to change his flight so he could stay with me. They had no open seats, so we decided he should just go home the next morning as scheduled so we both didn't end up stuck. By the time we finished getting all of the plans taken care of, it was too late to go to the park and we were exhausted anyway. So, that was it for our last day in Barcelona together. In spite of the last minute change of plans and me getting stuck, we had a great trip and enjoyed the time we had in Spain.

Stay tuned for the bonus features...