162 / 344
156
March). One drops to the path for
Santa Cova
(€2.70 return), a seventeenth-
century chapel built where the icon is said originally to have been found. It’s
an easy walk there and back, which takes less than an hour.The other funicular
rises steeply to the hermitage of
Sant Joan
(€6.60 return, joint ticket for both
funiculars €7.50), from where it’s a tougher forty-five-minute walk to the
Sant
Jeroni
hermitage, and another fifteen minutes to the Sant Jeroni summit at
1236m. Several other walks are also possible from the Sant Joan funicular;
perhaps the nicest is the simple (but steep) forty-five-minute circuit around the
ridge that leads back down to the monastery.
Practicalities
To reach the Montserrat cable-car and rack-railway stations, take the
FGC
train
(line R5, direction Manresa), which leaves from Plaça d’Espanya
(
o
Espanya) daily at hourly intervals from 8.36am. Get off at Montserrat Aeri
(52min) for the connecting cable car, the
Aeri de Montserrat
(
T
938 350 005,
W
www.aeridemontserrat.com) – you may have to queue for fifteen minutes or
so, but then it’s an exhilarating five-minute swoop up the sheer mountainside
to a terrace just below the monastery.The alternative approach is by cog-wheel
mountain railway, the
Cremallera de Montserrat
(
T
902 312 020,
W
www
.cremallerademontserrat.cat), which departs from Monistrol de Montserrat (the
next stop after Montserrat Aeri, another 4min); again, services connect with
train arrivals from Barcelona, and take about twenty minutes to climb to the
monastery.
Returning to Barcelona
, the R5 trains depart hourly from
Monistrol de Montserrat (from 9.33am) and Montserrat Aeri (from 9.37am).
A desk and information board at Plaça d’Espanya station details all the
combined fare options. Currently, a
return ticket
from Barcelona costs €15
(either for train and cable car or train and
cremallera
), and there are also two
combined tickets: the
Trans Montserrat
(€21), which includes the metro,
train, cable car/
cremallera
, unlimited use of the two funiculars and entry to the
audiovisual exhibit; and the
Tot Montserrat
(€35), which includes the same
plus museum entry and a self-service cafeteria lunch. Both tickets are also
available at the Plaça de Catalunya tourist office in Barcelona.
Drivers
should take the A2 motorway as far as the Martorell exit, and then
follow the N11 and C55 to the Montserrat turn-off – or they can park at either
Montserrat: flora and fauna
The
vegetation
of the lower slopes of Montserrat is essentially Mediterranean forest
– where fires have occasionally swept through, the burned patches have since been
recolonized by Spanish gorse, rosemary and a profusion of grape hyacinths, early
purple orchids and martagon lilies. Higher up, although apparently barren of vegeta-
tion, Montserrat’s rounded turrets support a wide variety of fissure plants, not least
of which is the lime-encrusting saxifrage
Saxifraga callosa
ssp.
catalaunica
– known
to grow only at Montserrat and on the hills near Marseille. Plants more typical of the
high Pyrenees also make their home here, including botanical gems such as ramonda
and the handsome Pyrenean bellflower.
Birds
of Montserrat include Bonelli’s warblers, nightingales, serins and firecrests in
the woodlands, while the burned areas provide refuge for Sardinian warblers and good
hunting for Bonelli’s eagles. Sant Jeroni, the highest point of Montserrat, is an excellent
place to watch for peregrines, crag martins and black redstarts all year round, with the
addition of alpine swifts in the summer and alpine accentors in the winter. On sunny
days Iberian wall lizards emerge from the crevices to bask on rock faces.
OUT OF THE CITY
|
Montserrat