Montserrat Day Trip

Montserrat — literally "serrated mountain" in Catalan, named for its distinctive multi-peaked rock formations — has drawn pilgrims since the Middle Ages to the Santa Maria de Montserrat Abbey, a Benedictine monastery built into the mountainside roughly 50km northwest of Barcelona. According to tradition, a wooden statue of the Virgin Mary, now known as La Moreneta ("the little dark-skinned one") for the dark patina her wood has taken on over the centuries, was discovered in a cave on the mountain in the 9th or 10th century, and the monastery grew up around her veneration into one of Catalonia's most important religious and cultural sites.

Most day-trip itineraries combine the same core elements: the scenic approach itself, typically via a rack railway (cremallera) or cable car climbing dramatically up the mountainside; time to visit the basilica and view La Moreneta up close in a small chapel behind the main altar; and, on days it performs, the chance to hear the Escolania de Montserrat, one of Europe's oldest boys' choirs, with a documented history stretching back to at least the 13th century, singing in the basilica around midday.