Ocean Front Hotel and Montserrat

Traveling with The Hubby has its perks. One of these is that we stay in great hotels and this trip was no exception. We were able to stay right next to the beach in Barcelona, and so we could easily walk along the rows of restaurants and such that line the beach in this stretch of the sea.

 Here is the view of the north side of the city of Barcelona from our hotel room.

 The Hubby's favorite building in the area. He called it "the bullet."

 Then turning the camera to the right and out the east is the Mediterranean.

 There is art in nearly every nook and cranny of this city. This, still out of the same window.

And the meshy-metal of this structure atop the casino next door.

 Another thing in the city that is part of life is the railway system. We got a 5 day pass to the subway and took it all around the city. Here we are waiting for the actual train to take us an hour outside of Barcelona.

 Look closely (I'm quite serious here. Click on this picture so you can see where we are going.) slightly above the center of this photo and you can see where we are headed. Called Monserrat, (the Catalan people have revered it for centuries and it is their #1 pilgrimage site) this monastery is built in the rocky vertical ascent of this mountain. In some form or another, monks have occupied this sawtooth terrain since 900AD. It is quite an amazing site.

The chapel in the background here. The place is a village of sorts, with grocery, museums, dormitories, school, and churches. There were farmers markets set up along the main road selling cheeses and local wares.

The twelve disciples with Jesus in the center, as you walk into the basilica.

The place was crowded with standing room only for the young boys choir to perform at 1:00pm (everyday except Saturday.) It was beautiful and so were the voices of the choir.

I liked it.

 We had ridden up on the rack railway train, but went down on this cable ride. OLD cable ride I should say.

Standing room for 25. It drops from the 2400 ft monastery to the nearly sea level train station in about 4 minutes. Here we come!

A very nice excursion. If you go to Catalona someday, make sure you see this place.