Montserrat Mountain | Team Starnes Takes Barcelona

James and I spent the second part of our day excursion at Montserrat Mountain, which is located just about an hour outside of Barcelona. The mountain is easily recognizable for its peculiar rock formation, but most of its visitors are drawn to its "rare" La Moreneta, which is a statue of a dark-faced virgin Mary with infant Christ.

Ok. So get this—On our tour we were told that manyyyyyyyy moons ago, this statue of the virgin and child appeared on the mountain (assumingly out of nowhere), and when local monks tried to move it to safety, the statue got sooooooo heavy that no one could move it. The monks took this as a miracle and a sign that the statue did not want to be moved, so they built a monastery around it.

** I went on that tour some eight weeks ago, so I don't quote me on any of this... I did do some research before writing this and there are a few variations of the story, but I'll let you do your own research if you're interested... Also, I put "rare" in quotation marks because they do not actually have any proof that this is actually one of the rare black Madonnas from Europe, in fact, they have been restoring it and painting it black for many years. Just food for thought.

Aside from the interesting history of the monastery, I was really anxious to get up the mountain and see the views. And let me tell you, they didn't disappoint.

It turns out that another draw the mountain has (surprise, surprise), is mountain climbing! For some reason I was so shocked to see people in rock climbing gear. They would just hop off the trolly ride that took us up the mountain and "on belay!"

James and I definitely were not in the right clothes to go for a proper hike, but if we ever go back, I will definitely bring my athletic shoes to tackle Sant Jeroni!