Montserrat Mountain, Spain: a downhill trip

Another sacred spot, another failure. Ah, well. I look out over the wind-rounded ridges of Montserrat Mountain, Spain, wondering if I’ll ever live up to people’s expectations. Truthfully, I’d rather dodge them altogether. The wind blows my hair as I look past the Cross of St Michael and down over the valley floor of Catalonia.

Just breathe

I breathe. Spread my arms wide like the cross. This is why I signed up for this tour of spiritual places in northern Spain. For a chance to experience the Sierra de Montserrat, a mountain ridge so improbable and moving the German philosopher Goethe declared, “Nowhere but in his own Montserrat will a man find happiness and peace.”

Like Goethe, I’m here at the ‘Serrated Mountain’ to find my inner Montserrat.

What I’ve found so far, however, is (yet another) confrontation with my non-robust self, my dread of pre-dawn tours and desire to hike alone (except when worried about serial killers and wild boars). A person who let the group down.

It’s not as if I set out to be a failure. In fact, let’s not call it failure. Let’s call it: Finding My Own Path, Which Happens to Be Slower, And Possibly Shorter, And Hopefully More Downhill Than Everyone Else’s Path.

Finding my path at Montserrat Monastery

Montserrat – the Serrated Mountain

At least our guide, Carlos, had been understanding when I’d confessed I wasn’t up for a pre-dawn 5-hour hike up Montserrat Mountain, so my companions, a handful of travel bloggers went without me.

The Cross of St. Michael was to be their first stop, where they were going to watch the sunrise and drink hot “Coca de Montserrat” and I’m sure it was a life-changing moment full of camaraderie and epiphanies. My eyes sweep the ground for telltale signs of their stop, an empty cup with chocolate dregs crusting the bottom perhaps or little paper flags from their home countries of Portugal, Norway and USA.

Of course there is nothing. It’s just me and Montserrat, a mountain that rises up so unexpectedly from the plains of northern Spain it’s said to have been carved by angels.

Where is Montserrat Mountain in Spain?

Sitting about 50 km northwest of Barcelona, the 10-km long Sierra de Montserrat mountain ridge was formed, if not literally by angels, then by a delta that deposited a mountain’s worth of sediment, gravel sands, and pebbles in a long-vanished ancient lake.

Then, for the last 20 million years or so rain, wind and acidic soil have used Montserrat Mountain as a way to express their creativity, carving and eroding it into fanciful shapes and needle-like columns.

From some angles it looks like a mass of (slightly squashed) organ pipes sculpted from clay. At other times it looks cartoonish, the Flintstones version of a sacred mountain. Some say it looks like the fingers of God reaching up. One thing is certain, it’s a tourist destination with a presence and one of the most popular day trips from Barcelona.

Fingers of God

A sacred mountain

Above all, Montserrat is a pilgrimage spot. The devout come to see the Black Madonna, a wooden statue found glowing in a cave back in 880 AD. The statue, carved by St Luke himself, has a mind of its own. When it refused to be moved from Montserrat Mountain, by suddenly becoming enormously heavy and impossible to move, the powers that be (the ‘powers’ in this case being Count Wilfred the Hairy) ordered a chapel built around it. A benedictine monastery, the Santa Maria de Montserrat, was established in 1409.

(Mysteriously, the statue of the Black Madonna dates back to the 12th-century Romanesque era, making it 300 years younger than its actual discovery, but no matter – that’s how miracles work.)

The Basilica

What is Montserrat, Spain?

For the Benedictine monks who live here, Montserrat is the ‘Holy Mountain.’ For hikers, it’s a natural paradise and to New Age believers it’s the heart chakra of the world. In essence, Montserrat is many things to many people, and I’m trying to figure out what it is to me.

What is your Montserrat?

Montserrat Museum – St Jerome

I’d like to hike farther (yes, I would so!), but I need time to visit the Montserrat Museum on St Mary’s Square. Among the many artworks there is the famous Caravaggio painting, St Jerome in Meditation – a dark brooding painting that suits my contemplative mood.

St Jerome

Montserrat Museum – the accidental museum

Montserrat Museum was created almost by accident – a Spanish-born phoenix that rose from the ashes of Napoleon’s troops, who sacked the monastery in 1811 in retaliation against the Catalan guerrilla fighters who’d holed up here. If they could have they probably would have smashed Montserrat Mountain itself.

Monastery with a view

The ruin of Montserrat Monastery in Spain

Montserrat Monastery was destroyed, its precious jewels plundered, artifacts smashed – though the Black Madonna escaped unscathed. Montserrat was forced to re-invent itself, or at least to rebuild. When the new Montserrat Basilica was erected in the late 19th century, the monks bought a few paintings for its walls, but unexpectedly so many donations of artwork poured in, the vast majority from Catalan donors, that a museum practically established itself.

Spontaneous hugging starts here

I take a last look out at the valley. Do I need to re-invent myself, I wonder? Re-build myself into something bigger and better, someone who doesn’t desert her team? I place my palm against the rock of the mountain, as if to tap into Montserrat’s earthy energy, then give it a pat and walk on. After a few steps I come to a crossroads. One path leads up Montserrat Mountain; a challenging trail the group must have followed.

I take the other path, the one that leads down.

My path

What do you do with your inner Montserrat once you find it?

A bird flashes out of a yew tree. I pause at the statue of an angel and think about what I gained from not keeping up. A leisurely breakfast (mountain sunrise not included) in the stone-lined dining room of the monastery hotel. A hike in the silence of early (but not too early) morning before the tour buses arrive. No blisters.

Love you guys!

I start swinging my arms as I lope down the trail. Maybe life isn’t all about challenge and self-improvement. Maybe you don’t have to climb every mountain in your path – at least not every day. Maybe finding your inner Montserrat isn’t enough to give you the peace and happiness Goethe refers to, you have to accept the person you find.

(And PS: When I showed up for our hike the next day to the Cami dels Bons Homes, the Good Men Trail, near Berguedà, at the lovely hour of 10 a.m., only one other person wanted to go. Everyone else’s feet were too sore.)

Not in my defence: The two bloggers from JustaPack.com went back and did the entire Good Men Trail. Here’s Randi’s story about the hike I didn’t do in Montserrat. And here is Tawanna’s story over at Mom’s Guide to Travel about the hike I didn’t do in Montserrat. I told you I missed out!