Montserrat is one of the finest day-trips you'll take from Barcelona, and if you've got any sense of romance, you'll make it a night-trip too.
It's a small town located high, high, up in the rocky, bulging mountains around Barcelona. You reach it by a short train-ride from Barcelona and by an incredible, winding funicular that groans and squeals its way up the mountainside on a narrow rack railway line. Sit on the left and don't fall out.
People go for the monastery and its opulent 16th-century sister basilica, housing what is probably the only image ever of a black Virgin.
Little boys in penguin suits sing mass every day and although 80 monks still live and work here, the town's lifeline is tourism. There's a museum and audio-visual space and disabled access and all the usual visitor gubbins.
The spectacular bit is the Montserrat mountain itself - you can take another, smaller, steeper funicular up to the top with a picnic and your camera at the ready. Then get lost trekking back to the hotel down through the trees. The view from wherever you are is spectacular - sheer, craggy rock slipping out of a skirt of evergreen.
And the best bit, of course, is when all the other tourists go home, and you're left in the peace and quiet of an evening in the fresh mountains.
The Abat Cisneros might not be boutique-trendy or the ultimate in hotel luxury, but it's got the most damn fine location going for it anywhere around Barcelona.
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· Barcelona Hotel Guide [HotelChatter]
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femmefatale
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