Hiking in Montserrat: Why you should try it

During our 3-day long stay in Barcelona, we decided to dedicate one day to visit Montserrat. Undoubtedly, this was the best experience we had in this journey.

Monastery amidst the mountains

Located 50 km north-west from Barcelona, Montserrat monastery is surrounded by majestic mountains that attract millions of tourists yearly. On the cable road, we could already see the beautiful views of weirdly-shaped mountains, but it was just one of a thousand stunning views we enjoyed that day. The monastery itself looked in harmony with the nature around it.

Feel the spirit of exploring

The real adventure began as soon as we got the itineraries map 🧐 5 suggested itineraries, all starting from the monastery and reaching up in the mountains. We could choose based on attractions we wanted to see, difficulty, and length. Didn’t use the digital map on my phone just to feel the spirit of exploring! Definitely recommend to try 👍

Get lost – but don’t regret

We wanted to take one of the harder routes through the mountains (number 5), around 4.5 km long, leading to the Cross of Sant Miguel. But in fact, we took the wrong way from Santa Joan funicular and found ourselves on route number 3! 🙃 This itinerary, 7.5 km long, took us higher than 500 m up in the mountains, to the peak point of Montserrat, Sant Jeroni heritage (1.236 m).

Why you can and should do it

Even if you never went hiking, be sure that the efforts are worth those views! Never have the smallest doubt about heading up in Montserrat – the emotions are unforgettable 🙌

The photos from the top do not reflect everything we felt when we reached Sant Jeroni. Content mixed with astonishment, and a tiny bit of tiredness. Our way down was full of stairs, forest trails, and lack of water, but that‘s a different story 😉

P.S. Travel tip: You can reach Montserrat in 1 hour by R5 train + Aeri (cable road) or Cremallera (rack rail) from Plaça Espanya. Make sure you take the most advantageous ticket Trans Montserrat (around 29.50€), which entitles you for return trip and unlimited use of funiculars up in the mountains. In this case, you won’t have to pay for the funicular separately as we did 😅