BARCELONA – 10-12 October 2026
We had two more trips to go, and by now we’re pretty worn out, it’s been almost four weeks of sightseeing. By now we’re getting the hang of the language with our greetings of buenos dias, buenas noches, gracias and muchas gracias which I’ve added to my previous repertoire ¿Dónde está tu casa?
So, for the first trip, we off to another old building. It was somewhat challenging as our guide’s English was a bit average, made worse by his machine-gun speech, some found it easier to go to sleep than to listen to him in the car. We were on our way to the Monserrate Monastery, in the country-side of Catalonia heading 48k west of Barcelona.
I was surprised at the amount of forest/bushland and the hills.
Looking out into the valley. There’s a nun’s convent on the cliff-line – not open to the public.
And then we came to – Santa Maria de Montserrat an abbey of the Order of Saint Benedict located on the mountain of Montserrat. It is notable for enshrining the image of the Virgin of Montserrat.
The monastery was founded in 1025 and rebuilt between the 19th and 20th centuries.
There is a community of around 70 monks, the abbey remains in use, and I think they might live in these rooms. You enter the abbey through those doors in the background.
One of the marble carvings at the entrance.
And one at the other side, I particularly liked the treatment of this warrior’s skirt.
The inside was particularly ornate, lots of gold on the walls – maybe this is where Trump got his ideas for the Oval Office.
Nice ceilings.
Lots of the usual depictions of Mary.
And some nice lead lighting for windows. Again, the glass is painted, with different colours to show the folds in the clothing. Not a fan of the painting of the glass.
And I really liked the hanging lights.
We were to have an hour and a half to ourselves. Not keen to hang around for an hour and a half, I said that I’d rather do the walk down to a cave which has a depiction of a “black Madonna”. The guide told me that it would take him 30 minutes to get to the shrine and then an hour to walk back (due to being all uphill). So, I negotiated with him and said that I would meet him at the spot where everyone was to meet up at 1.15pm. It was 11.45 when I left and I figured that I should turn around at 12.15pm to make sure that I had an hour for the return trip.
The pathway is very good, and all downhill (this is looking back from where I’d come). From time to time I asked anyone who spoke English how far I was from the cave, with mixed results.
I got here at 12.10pm and I could see that there was a cross on the spur of the hill. Now, I was pretty sure that there wouldn’t be a “cave” on the spur, so figured I’d have to walk further around the spur, and uphill to get to the spur. I only had 5 minutes and didn’t think I’d make it to the cave and back. (Note … big, sad face as I turned around thinking that it would take me an hour to get to the pick-up place).
The circle on the right is where I turned around, the cross I saw is on the LH side of the pic.
I must be fitter than I thought as I was up at the meet up place 35 minutes later, 25 minutes ahead of time! And then I looked at the map at the beginning of the walk and turned out that the “Madonna” is in a “cave” at the cross … I was only 5 minutes away!!!
Not that I needed to see a fake statue of a Madonna, but I would have liked to get to my destination as planned. Maybe the guide took one look at my grizzled old face and thought “she’ll take forever to do that walk!”
The next day, with a new guide we headed to Palau-Sator a small medieval village in Catalonia, Spain, known for its historic stone walls, cobblestone streets, and tranquil medieval charm. It has a population of 295. Sounds good! On the downside, I was put in the front of the people mover as I was the smallest person and the middle seat next to the driver had no-where to put your feet and it was determined that I had the shortest legs (?). Also, the driver was lovely but was coming down with a cold and I was then paranoid about taking a cold onto the cruise ship the following day (lol).
First stop was to admire the Basílica de San Félix, (didn’t go in until a little later). Apparently the city has dragged out some legends as a highlight for tourists.
The first legend is about “kissing the lioness”. Located at the foot of the stairs leading to the Basílica de San Félix, this column with a lioness on top dates back to the 12th century, and has long been a symbol for the city. Local tradition holds that you had to climb the column in order to kiss the el cul de la lleona (“the lioness’s ass”) to become an accepted citizen—or at least to ensure you would return to the Girona province. I don’t know how anyone climbed it, it was quite high up and quite a narrow pole. There’s now a sign beside it saying something to the effect “not to climb the pole”.
Instead of climbing the pole the city has provided a brass plaque at head height that you can “kiss”. Seems a lot of people took up the challenge.
The city streets are charmingly narrow.
But there are lots of stairs. I thought that I’d like to live in a medieval city like this until the guide said that people with families and older people didn’t live in the city cause it was annoying to have to carry your groceries all the way up the steps.
We’re in the church, different to what we’ve seen so far, they had paintings and murals all over the walls.
And nice stained glass.
More narrow streets.
And an interesting corner that was less than 90° maybe 45°.
Then we’re off to another village Peratallada (Old Catalan for ‘carved stone’and is located 22 km east of Girona. Most of the buildings are built from stone carved from the a moat which still encircles parts of the medieval town – although there’s no water in it now. There’s a privately owned in the center of the town which has been documented as early as 1065 AD there is a dig at the back of the castle which has revealed traces of settlement dating back to the Bronze Age.
Cute houses, lots of steps.
More steps.
And nice arches with more steps.
The mote where they dug out the stone for the castle etc. Note, no water in it – no need for fortifications in this day and age.
Cute cottages.
And there were a few of these “bridge” sections of houses which meant that you could extend your house across the road if you needed more space.
We then headed over to another small village for lunch and there was this strange construction in the middle of the square. I thought it might be a bread bakery but turns out it was a well. I was a bit tired by then and didn’t ask how they’d get the water into it.
Last stop was a call into this beach area, by now we’re all pretty much washed out. When we got to the beach we didn’t even bother to have a swim.
But we still had 130k to get back to our accommodation. By everyone is a bit tired, went to sleep, including Ray who was in the seat beside me. When the driver mentioned he’d have to stop to get something to keep him awake, I took it upon myself to talk with him for the 1 hour+ drive back to Barcelona whilst he ate two bags of “lollies”. It was nice chatting, but I religiously kept my eyes on the road – drivers don’t mind going over the 120 speed limit in Spain LOL.
We thought that was the end of our adventure but next morning we were picked up to take us to our cruise ship. None of us examined the itinerary so we were a bit surprised when the driver took us PAST the dock area of Barcelona. I was facing backwards in the car so really couldn’t see much but after 1/2 an hour Rhonda questioned Christine “are we going the right way”. Then we looked at the itinerary only to find out that the dock we were going to was an hour away! We’ll be a little more “with it” in the future LOL.
And so ended our sojourn in Spain … so here’s a few hints if you are thinking about visiting Spain …
- I loved Barcelona particularly the architecture and the city plan.
- Not all locals speak English, so maybe do a quick dive into the language to at least give you some basics for when you are wanting a taxi or directions – or get a translation app.
- I enjoyed visiting everything that we went to, you get over churches after a while, but I will admit that they are all different.
- If you go to the Monastery at Monserrate, take a train there and do the two hikes out from the Monastery, they both give you good views of the surrounding countryside, you don’t need a guide if you download a Wiki overview of what you will see.
- Beaches in Spain aren’t like Australian beaches, they are quite small and the sand is coarse, and they are usually crowded, and usually it’s a good walk down to get to the beach.
- Barcellona has banned bull fighting so all the bull fighting rings have been made into shopping malls.