Barcelona Day 4

Barcelona - Day 4 

Today was a reasonably early start and of course it was the first day that jetlag didn’t wake me at 2 or 3 or 4 or 5 am, my alarm woke me at 7.30 so woo hoo jetlag must be over!!

I've found a café around the corner where coffee and a croissant cost me €3 so that's a new fave, after that I went to the place where my tour to Montserrat was leaving from.

                      

           Barcelona at 8.30 am                                       These two were 'canoodling'

                                                                                   in front of the bus before we left - bless 'em!

It took just over an hour to get to Montserrat – a range of mountains (“Mont”) that look like the top of them is serrated (“serrat”).  At Montserrat there is a school for young boys who are under the age of 14ish, the boys make up the choir that sing in the church for every service.  Once their voices break they have to take off and go home and go to a ‘normal’ school like all boys whose voices have broken.

                     Montserrat

Montserrat Monastery

St.Michael's cross on the edge of the mountain

The guide was something else!  She would speak in English and then tell the English speakers to keep walking while she relayed the same message in Spanish to the Spanish speakers.  The thing was, the English speakers had absolutely NO IDEA where we were supposed to be going!  She got quite annoyed with the English speakers because we weren’t walking off – to wherever we were meant to be walking off to!  I did laugh out aloud at one stage because I was blindly following a lady with a green umbrella holding a green “Montserrat” sign – everything I hate about tour groups but I was doing it!

After she took us to the outskirts of the church she left us to our own devises.  Whatever that meant. 

I went inside the church which was A-Maze-Ing – of course photos were not allowed, so here are some –

 

Inside the Church

Where I had to go to see the Black Madonna

When you go through to see the statue of the Black Madonna, she has baby Jesus sitting on her knee, heaps of symbolism, and she is holding a ball (I forget the symbolism) that you are allowed to touch and ask the Madonna for whatever you want.  I asked for ‘world peace, for my girls to be taken care of, for me to have safe travels and one other thing that doesn’t need to be anyone else’s business but mine and the black Madonna’s.

Again, no photos were allowed so I didn’t get a photo of the Black Madonna but I did manage to get a close up of some of the amazing mosaics near her – 

After asking the Black Madonna for everything on my list, I found the ‘gift shop’ and got another bauble with “Montserrat” plastered all over it then I found the café which was just as well because by now I was hanging for caffeine.

After coffee it was time to meet the group and get back on the bus for the trek back to Barcelona, but not before trying to take a selfie and failing dismally so needing to ask some woman to take my photo – it was freeeeeezing up there!

Farrrreeeeeeeeezzzzing

After getting back into Barcelona and more caffeine, I wandered around in a different direction and found amazing architecture including this –

One of the reasons I came to Barcelona – Gaudi’s architecture – there are also mosaics on the façade

 After being excited by my find, I then went in search of wine – that seemed to take forever but I finally managed it.  Then I needed food so went in search of tapas – the new love of my life.  I have seen “Patatas Bravas” and guessed that the chilli was as hot as hell but I braved it and it was juuuuuust right, plus it came with a garlic sauce that I am sure people in Australia would be able to smell it from there – it was amaze-balls.  The perfect finish was delicious espresso and a small bill. 

Gracious Espanol!  I’ve had a great day!

Tapas - one of the new loves of my life, espresso I have always loved