Sleeping on a Cliff, Montserrat, Catalonia

Zagan the motorhome’s firmly planted onto the sloping car park of the Santa Maria de Montserrat Abbey, which is itself cut out of a cliff high on the serrated mountains of Montserrat (N41.59665, E1.83860). Our steadies are down, as the wind was up when we arrived yesterday, and we’re on our ramps to level off the to-be-expected sloping nature of place (it being in such a bonkers location high above the Catalan countryside). Motorhomes are welcome to stay here for €6.50 per 24 hours (getting cheaper the longer you stay, we stayed 2 days for €8), but level-ish spots are like rocking horse doo doo. Word is the guards will happily let you use the flat coach parking area closer to the abbey overnight, but you have to be gone by 8am when the coaches start to arrive, which is no good to us as we’ll still be half asleep.

The drive here from Girona was uneventful. The roads were in great condition, two lanes much of the way and, but for a few lorries, devoid of traffic. Our only concern as we rolled along under blue skies listening to old Desert Island Discs podcasts and gawping at the views around us, was our dwindling diesel supply. We’d a supermarket plotted into the satnav but once the orange light had flashed on and off a few times, we bottled it and filled up at a station on the main road. At €1.23 a litre we were pretty happy, although we have seen the stuff being flogged for €1.06 (we think) in Girona.

Our aim was to get up here on Montserrat, which we knew was possible from the park4night.com database, we aren’t breaking new ground here! That said, it still seemed unreal we’d be able to drive up the side of what looks like a thin-edged wedge of rock. The first time we saw the outline of these mountains was on a foggy day when we were touring the Spanish Pyrenees. They emerged suddenly from the gloom, bringing forth some choice words from me as I glanced from the road up at the apparition in the sky. Driving up ’em seemed only for the brave or foolish.

There are one or two options for parking your van up around here. One is to stay at the train station coach parking, which the guard is happy with as long as you use the train to get up here to the abbey. We’d considered that option, but we knew from having stayed in other crazy high-up places that there’s no substitute for peering down at night over cities and towns, so we ploughed straight up here. The road up is in perfect condition, all five miles of it. I know it’s five miles as I ran down and back up it this morning, happily not being squished by any of the full-sized coaches bringing the punters in from Barcelona. At the top you just grab a ticket at the barrier and drive in, hoping that it’s reasonably quiet like it is now (in January – no surprise) so you can find somewhere flat-able.

Once we were parked and could relax, the location and vista started to sink in. This is one incredible place. We can see half the Pyrenees from here, off to the north. To the east are the Catalan cities leading up to Barcelona (which is itself largely hidden) and sections of the shimmering Med. To the south the low hills drift off into the distance. At night tiny sets of red and white lights slide across the landscape below, toys to us, while stars shine bright above.

As ever, we knew very little about where we were coming to until we got here! It turns out Montserrat Abbey’s rather famous, and has been pulling in pilgrims for centuries. Of old they’d have had a jolly difficult walk to get up here, but these days the road, train and even a cable car wings ’em up in a jiffy. There’s even a funicular to lift you higher than the abbey, but it’s being fettled at the moment or we’d have been on it! In warmer months, I can well imagine it being heaving up here, but at the moment, in winter, it’s nicely busy with tourists being skillfully tempted into buying local honey, cheese and nuts by a line-up of outdoor purveyors, even before they get near the souvenir shops, cafeteria, museum and, oh yes, the actual abbey.

We’ve been up here a couple of days now, or we will have by the time we leave tomorrow. There’s a surprising amount of stuff to do! As well as enjoying the abbey, which is pretty amazing inside despite its severe exterior, we’ve taken to the hills up here, walking for hours around the well-worn pathways, all with jaw-dropping views. Today we breakfasted Chez Zagan before taking to the abbey and getting in line for our allotted 3 second view of the Virgin of Montserrat, a black statue of the Madonna and child which once bore the inscription “I am black but beautiful”, according to Wikipedia at least. Filing past under the watchful eye of a security guard, we headed out into the main area of the abbey to catch a bit of the 1pm choir singing. Ju advises me these wee lads have released over 100 CDs, which is rather a lot more work than I’d done by their age, or my age thinking about it.

Once we were done being struck by the splendor of the abbey (roughly half way through the choir’s second tune), we snuck out and commenced what turned out be almost 5 hours of walking. A couple of good trails lead up to Sant Jeroni, the highest peak in Montserrat with even more stupendous views than the rest of the place.

I won’t lie to you: we did do a bit of moaning on the walk there as all four of our legs were aching and we were a tad knackered, but the family of wild goats erupting across the path gave us a welcome lift for the final set of steps! More goats, it turned out, were to re-appear on the way down, some clashing horns (it’s mating season), others letting out a high pitch whistle when we surprised ’em on the path before legging it down a vertical drop. We’ve been keeping an eye out up here for Bonelli’s Eagles too, getting excited at one point when we were overflown by a couple of crows…

When we finally made it back to Zagan we both collapsed into our chairs, although not without eyeballing the Russian-registered motorhome next to us. Don’t see many of them, but neither of us have the energy for a conversation at the moment. Both nights we’ve been up here we’ve had the company of other motorhomes so it’s clearly a popular spot. Ju’s since cooked up ‘heavy food’, a simple recipe we nicked from Chris Stewart’s Driving Over Lemons, in which we chuck some olive oil, potatoes, onions, garlic, peppers, whatever you like really into a frying pan and slowly cook the lot of it. Apart from all the chopping, simple stuff and delicious.

OK, signing off! I’m not a religious man, but I can of course understand the draw to the soul of places like this. There are around 70 or 80 monks who live up here, and we’ve seen some of them in the abbey, plus a couple of smiling nuns today out on the walk. I wonder how the thousands upon thousands of us lot descending upon the place helps them with their lives and work, apart from delivering the obvious funds which we all need to survive. I imagine (and hope) they get enough solitude in the complex of buildings up the hill from me, and also get to enjoy the same walks and views as we did today. At one point we’d seen three or four separate runners taking on the epic climb up to the peak we visited, and Ju asked if perhaps any of them were monks. Why not? Seems like a great way to think, and to enjoy this beautiful place.

Cheers, Jay