Because on holidays you must push yourself as much as possible, we opted to do a private walking tour/hike from Montserrat. Originally Glen was meant to join us but the night before he declared he was going to have a rest day so that left Julian, Simon and I to go exploring.
Montserrat is outside Barcelona and sits in the mountains. Its name means ‘serrated mountain’ and you can easily see why. Apart from being a generally beautiful looking bit of landscape, it’s also the sight of the Black Madonna, a relic found in AD blah blah blah in a cave by some farmers.
The statue of Mary holding the baby Jesus has black “skin”, which could, perhaps, just maybe, be due to the leaching of whatever minerals found in the mountain into the wooden sculpture. Or it’s a miracle. Both seem equally likely. Apparently, when she was found, she was going to be sent to Barcelona or somewhere else, but the statue didn’t want to move, becoming incredibly heavy and unable to be transported. This was taken as a sign to build a cathedral and establish it as a location for a tourist destination, I mean, pilgrimage (and all its attendant money making potential).
(Funnily enough, though, Mary didn’t mind being moved when Napoleon’s forces invaded. She was quite happy to go somewhere safe then.)
Anyway, cynicism aside, the mountains are beautiful and picturesque and the drive up was great. We managed to arrive at the cathedral behind the sudden influx of tourist buses so we had unhurried time in front of the Black Madonna, which also gave us a great view into the cathedral from behind the altar without a lot of people in the way. While the statue itself isn’t much, the surrounding decoration on the walls is spectacular with a lot of colourful mosaics and paintings.
After the Black Madonna, we went into the rest of the church, saw the Gaudi chapel and a Modernist interpretation of the crucifixion in another chapel (where a man was reading a newspaper), then set off on our hike.
Being the young, fit, experienced hikers that we are, our guide was only too happy to take us on the long route up and down on what turned out to be quite a warm day. We passed a number of little churches which used to house a single solitary monk each but today are closed unless needed for a special occasion.
We hiked to the top of one of the knobbly rocks then climbed down. Somehow I ended up being the slowest person on the hike and everyone kept stopping and waiting for me. I wasn’t actually struggling, I was just taking my time. On the plus side, it gave everyone else a rest every 100 metres or so.
We finished up around 1pm and left at 1:30 for our ride back to Barcelona. Julian and Simon fell asleep in the back. I sat up the front and had to make conversation. The sacrifices you make for your friends…
Travels with Dan 
What do you say, eh?