Montserrat, 50 kilometres inland from Barcelona and one of the symbols of Catalan nationalism, is a mountain of really quite extraordinary shape -- a weird assemblage of conical pinnacles, domes and shallow terraces rising above steep gorges. Its geological orgins are sedimentary, when a river from the Balearic continent flowed into a large lake at the centre of today's Catalonia. The lake dried out when the Balearic continent sank, taking the river with it, at the end of the Mesozoic Era; uplift and erosion around 10 million years ago turned the conglomerates of the lake bed into today's mountain. We'd have more pictures of it, had it not been for the low cloud that shrouded most of it during our drive up there from Tarragona; at the time of our arrival, the monastery and the mountain tops lay above the clouds, which had only begun to burn off when it was time to come back down again. But here's one of the few pictures of the whole thing that we did get, from the coach as it was driving away.

Early Christian hermits were attracted by the mountain's strange appearance. Legend claims that St Peter hid a Black Madonna carved by St Luke in one its caves; an obvious device to lure in pilgrims and fleece them of their donations, created once the selfsame statue had actually been found there in 880 CE. The chapel built on the site was gifted to the Benedictines in 976 CE, who added a monastery, which over time became incredibly wealthy -- in the Middle Ages, the monastery was second in importance to Santiago de Compostela as a pilgrimage shrine. It was looted and sacked by Napoleon's troops in 1811, and not reoccupied by monks until in 1844 -- although rebuilding did not commence until 1858; the new (and rather ugly) basilica was inaugurated in 1901. Here are some photographs of it, showing it first from the eastern end, with the bulk of the monastery to the right, and then as we approached the west front.

    

    

As you'll note, the place attracts a lot of people -- some of them for religious reasons, some for the Museu de Montserrat (gifts to the monastery by the faithful, but also archaeological finds and a collection of paintings by Catalans of the 19th century Renaixenca movement), and almost everyone for the walks over the top of the mountain, to its caves and ruined hermitages. To start with, however, here are two views of the valley immediately below the monastery, one taken as we arrived, showing the low cloud I mentioned earlier, and the other as we were leaving, when the cloud had been burned off. Below them is a view from above of the path to the Holy Grotto where the Black Madonna was supposedly hidden.

    

That photograph shows at bottom right the terminus of one of the mountain's funicular stations, in this case to take down to the grotto those pilgrims who can't manage the steps. There's another funicular which runs from the monastery up to the top of the mountain; below, on the left, is a view of the monastery as we ascended. This is followed, below right, by an information board identifying the main peaks (and incidentally) showing how strong the sun was above the clouds); then by two views of the peaks themselves; and, lastly, by two views of the top of the mountain, taken on the path to one of the hermitages.

    

    

    

The brevity of our visit to Montserrat meant that we had time to take only one of the walks around the mountain top, to the hermitage of St Joan. If we ever go back there -- and since we plan to revisit Barcelona we probably will -- we shall try to spend longer, and do them all.