Day 4 Hiking the Montserrat and repositioning to Madrid

We took the funicular up the side of the mountain above the monastery and spent the morning hiking around and among the peaks.  Good exercise, great views.  Afterward, we slipped into the basilica one last time for pictures.  We arrived just as they were ending a Mass.  As mentioned before, Montserrat is a destination for tourists and pilgrims.  This must have been a “pilgrim mass”.  Coming out of the basilica was a torrent of wheel chairs.  People were wheeled in either for a blessing or a healing, or both.  All were in good spirits, laughing as their attendants were struggling with some of the steeper paths  leading from the basilica.  One possible miracle:  I nice lady was walking beside her wheelchair as her attendant was pushing it, now with her purse and carry-on instead of her in the wheelchair.  Good for me.

Over the centuries, probably 10-20 mini-monasteries were built above Montserrat. Most are gone, some in ruins, others have been rebuilt.  The monks didn’t mind the hiking I guess.

As mentioned, Montserrat is a destination for both tourists and pilgrims.  These two were on their own little peak a ways from us, (full telephoto), he was chanting in the lotus pose, she was singing and waving this broom up and down.  Kinda Buddhist-ish on a holy Catholic mountain.  BTW, below them was a dad and his son and daughter climbing up the side of the little peak with ropes, etc.  Multi-use holy mountain.

Next came our longest drive of the vacation, 6 hours southwest to Madrid.  A cross between the Central Valley of California, and the northern part of Nevada.  As mentioned before, the paper map continues to be useless.  Tom’s iPhone had problems, (or he did setting it up with WiFi in the morning).  We were dependent on my android to save the day.  Easy going on the tollways, but once we got into Madrid, it was essential to navigate all the streets to our hotel deep in the city.  All went surprisingly well, until we pulled in front of our very narrow lane at the hotel going the wrong way on a one way street.  We’ll take it.  Dinner down the street at 10PM, the restaurants and streets were packed.  These people don’t sleep!