After our very long 15 hour bus ride, we arrived in Barcelona around 2PM. After checking into our hostel, we headed for monistrol de Montserrat. This is a mountain about an hour train ride outside of Barcelona. On this mountain there are several different monasteries. Honestly, looking back, we didn't do enough research into this hike, but it was an adventure! We took a ski lift over the valley to get us to the mountain where the monasteries are located on.
From the top of the mountain you could see Barcelona and even the ocean. It was breath taking. On the top of the mountain there were several different monasteries that you could hike around to! Unfortunately by the time we got to the top of the mountain we only had time to visit one of them. Inside the monastery were chandeliers from all the big family churches in Barcelona. Each generation of a family with a cathedral in Barcelona has their own chandelier in Barcelona. When it's time for the next generations to go up they take down the old one and put it up in this monastery. There were chandeliers dating back to the 14th century in this monastery! Inside this monastery there were also several famous family members of the Barcelona church buried within the church. We also saw several monks that were at the monastery. This was the first time I have ever seen a monk in person. There were various workers in the monastery that explained what the various monks were doing in each monastery. This was interesting to learn about and see it all in person. When taking our train ride up to the 3rd highest mountain in all of Spain I couldn't help but think why did they choose to put monasteries so far away and out of of the city. When we got there we learned that monasteries are generally on top mountains so that they are closer to God. When there is monasteries there are generally a few located on top of that mountain. This was a first time for me visiting a monetary and I was fascinated when learning about all about it! We caught the trolley back down to the train station and it was quite a journey! I am not a fan of heights whatsoever so taking a trolley strait up to one of the highest train stations was quite a fright! This trolley was shaking from the sting winds with a strait drop off the edge of this mountain! The view was so pretty, but I was more concerned about making it to the bottom! Once we got back into Barcelona we got dinner at a grill outside of our hostel! The dinner was quite delicious, France and Spain most definitely have better food than the U.K. After our long day of travel and hiking around the mountain top we all went to bed having experienced a lot of new cultural experiences
2 Comments
Sandy
5/31/2015 01:33:21 pm
Hope this was your first and last 15 hour train ride?
Reply
Brooklyn Johnson
6/2/2015 06:48:11 am
NEVER again. I would not repeat this for free even haha
Reply
Leave a Reply. |