Montserrat Excursion

[Agent 86]

We did Montserrat by ourselves a day or two after the cruise ended. We found it pretty easy to get to the monastery by train and then cable car, with a funicular to the "top". It was a lovely spot and everything was pretty smooth.

The train back wasn't awesome as there were no seats available from the cable car stop (i.e. all the seats were taken by the people who got on at the earlier rack railway stop), so we (and MANY other people) were standing for an hour. That wasn't great after a full day of walking / hiking!

 

[kaseyC]

We did it with Barcelona Day Tours twice. Once just me and my girls at the end of our 2014 EBTA. Picked up at the pier with a few others and went on a small group tour of Montserrat. After they dropped us at our hotel. The second time in 2016 we did a private tour after an overnight flight from Chicago before our Med and Greek Isles cruise. I thought a light hike on the amazing trails would be a great way to get our bodies adjusted to the time zone and keep my teens awake. It was perfect. Barcelona Day tours was awesome. Our flight was late plus customs was crazy. Our private guide was fantastic too. He kept 3 super tired teens engaged. We also got to see the boys choir this time which we missed the last time. Amazing. We were dropped at our hotel afterwards. Monserrat is so beautiful and peaceful which is surprising considering it can get pretty crowded. @Shanti, you will not regret doing it.

 

[starvenger]

This might be the first place/excursion I’ve seen on this board where there are no negative reviews...

 

[remlap]

How long did that take?

We had late dining and enjoyed our table mates so we all went to breakfast on the last day. We spent most of the day on the excursion. We arrived about noon and got back to Barcelona about 5 PM. Note, we had lunch at the top in the cafe, saw the cathedral, waited in line for the black Madonna, took the upper funicular and then walked to the hermits cave and back to the cable car.
It could have been done much faster, but we were enjoying the day. It was an unexpected how enjoyable it was, and I strongly enjoyed being able to just go at our own speed and see what we wanted.
Both the cable car and cog railroad are right on a main trainline from barcelona. You don't need someone's help to organize this one.

 

[IBelieveInTheMagic]

Another vote for Montserrat being a must-do! I know there are so many amazing things to do in Barcelona and time can be limited. We stayed 2 nights before and after our 2017 Med cruise so we had time to do Montserrat in addition to things in Barcelona.

We also used Barcelona Day Tours and I do highly recommend them. I customized our "tour" to be picked up at our hotel, to do Montserrat and then be dropped off at the Camp Nou Stadium afterwards. We had someone else join the tour with us from our cruise group and she was dropped off at La Sagrada Familia afterwards.

We were fortunate to have beautiful blue skies and it was so amazing up there! We enjoyed being in the van and our guide went over so much information and pointed out so many things to us and the way and back.

Thanks,
Heather