HOME TOUR

I apparently have a difficult time getting tour guides up because our Spain trip was almost a year ago! The Barcelona guide is available here. On our third day in Spain, we rented a car from our hotel and drove to the famous monastery in the mountains of Montserrat. You can take the train from Barcelona, I found this website helpful, but we were driving on to the small mountainous European country of Andorra so a car rental made more sense.

MONTSERRAT

This was an easy one hour-ish drive from Barcelona. We drove all the way up and parked in an underground garage by the entrance. We immediately bought tickets, first for the funicular which takes you up above the monastery. We did this specifically to try and get a hike in before more rain was supposed to move in. It didn’t work, it started raining while we were hiking and it was chilly. We were already wearing all the warm-ish clothes we brought. (Part of the challenge of packing with just carry ons is weather fluctuations.) This happened to be a bit more of a hike than we were expecting. The kids did great (ages 5, 8 and 10) and the view point was worth it, but it was slippery and challenging in the rain.

The rock stairs up the final leg to the view point were quite steep. The kids held on well to the rope and we sandwiched them, me in the front and Matt in the back.

It’s an out and back hike to get back to the funicular which takes you back down to the monastery. With our entry time getting closer we headed back and enjoyed the wait inside and out of the rain.

MONTSERRAT–A BRIEF HISTORY

Montserrat was founded as a new monastery in 1025 by Oliba, Abbot of Ripoll and Bishop of Vic, at the hermitage of Santa Maria de Montserrat. From 1493 to 1835 it grew and increased in splendor. There’s even a few rumors it once held the Holy Grail. A few wars and some unrest later, the monastery is beautiful and worth a visit. You can read more about the history here.

ONWARD TO ANDORRA

We at lunch at the monastery (which was not great and over-priced) and then headed back to the car to start a two hour drive to the European country of Andorra which is up in the Pyrenees Mountains. The drive was pretty, up through the mountains, and luckily no one got car sick. Andorra isn’t a big tourist destination but it does attract shoppers as they are famous for their duty-free status.  The capital is in a narrow valley with tall mountains around. It was mid-June and there was snow up on the hills! At 40 degrees, we were freezing and unprepared for the weather. We found the entire capital to be one big shopping circus. We ate a mediocre lunch because nothing was open and then let the kiddos play at an epic playground. There’s always a silver lining because that ended up being one of their trip highlights. It was so fun. For us though, it was a “meh”. I wouldn’t go out of your way to Andorra unless you are getting out of the shopping mania and going hiking/skiing. I would have looooved to go hiking but there wasn’t enough time in the day. But we added another European country to our list!

It was a long 3+ hour drive back to Barcelona, getting back late and immediately getting the kiddos in bed. We had an afternoon flight the next day from Barcelona to Palma, Mallorca. Mallorca was my favorite part of the Spain trip and I’ll be working on getting that wandering up soon!