One of my favorite parts of visiting Montserrat was the Santa Cova trail. Legend says that the Virgin was found in this cave and when the men tried to transport her to Manresa, she grew too heavy to carry. Therefore, a monastery was built in the location where she was found.

All along the trail to the small chapel are statues that tell the story of Christ’s life. Each one uses the landscape to heighten the affect of the message.

The Santa Cova chapel is built right into the mountainside and is the same pink color of the local sedimentary rock.

Inside is a shrine where people have left items of thanks to the Virgin, including signed sports pennants, an ultrasound photo, and a pair of children’s crutches.

The hike to the chapel was well worth the climb and the outdoor sculptures made stopping to rest for a minute even more enjoyable.

Montserrat is truly nestled in amongst huge pink cliffs. The mountains tower over the abbey and we thought they looked a little like figures watching over the cloisters.

From the outside the abbey is very attractive, but we were blown away by the interior and the detailed sculptures that lined the open courtyard.

The amount of detailing and decoration was incredible. See for yourself…

We did not wait in line to touch the Virgin of Montserrat, or la Moreneta, but we did sit quietly to take in the ambiance and I flipped through a hymn book while Eric snapped several series of HDR raw photos.

For our big trip outside of Barcelona we visited beautiful Montserrat. Instead of buying all the travel portions of the trip separately, we got the Trans Montserrat pass for around 21€ which included round trip transportation on subway, train, rack railway and two funiculars. It took about 95 minutes one way and the views from the abbey were spectacular.

We grabbed a ciabatta loaf and an orange Fanta and headed up the Sant Joan funicular to eat lunch on one of the highest points around. We got there pretty early, so the tour buses full of people we still another hour or two away. :)

Here’s the view we had from our lunch spot.

From here, we hiked over to an overlook point to see the abbey from above. This view made us appreciate the steep funicular ride even more!