Today was the day to visit Montserrat, we had thought about a formal tour but after some consideration, and a lot of research on Mr Google we decided to do it ourselves. To be honest it was very easy, easier than we expected.

The day started with a tram trip to the local underground station, from where we took the underground to the Placa Espania to catch the R5 train line to Montserrat. All too easy and 3 different transport types so far. There are 2 stations you can get off to transfer to Montserrat the first gives you a cable car ride to the top (or/and back) and the second provides for a rack railway journey to the top. We decided to use the cable car up and once there decided on the rack railway for the return.

Montserrat is stunning, the views from up there as you can see are magnificent, we decided not to queue to see the Black Madonna, which is one of the main reasons Christians make the pilgrimage to Montserrat, as we had already seen 2 in our travels this trip and the queue together with the sheer number of steps in the basilica to see her made the decision easy.

We took the funicular up to near the top from where you can walk to the Ermita de Sant Joan shrine at the top of the mountain. As this was a walk over a unmade path which took an able bodied person approx 1 hour, we decided to just take in the views and not make the walk. Jane nobly said she would sit and wait whilst I did the walk, but the thought of leaving her on her own for 2 hours at the top of a mountain was, well will leave you to think of a suitable response.

As we made our way down the mountain we saw storm clouds brewing and thought just what we need, another soaking, but luckily it was not 3 soakings on the trot.

On returning to Barcelona we found our way once more to the La Rambla and a nice little tapas bar for dinner and a much needed bottle of wine to share, before making our way back to the hotel for a nightcap and bed. 6 modes of transport in a day, without getting on a road or plane.