Where The Wild Things Are - Montserrat and Barcelona

Towards the end of summer, I was determined to make a trip back east to New England for the fall foliage extravaganza in October. I used to go there with my parents when I was a kid and we'd drive through Vermont and Massachusetts and Maine and stay at little Inns and eat blueberry pancakes and shop for Yankee candles. Apparently, those are the sorts of things that you love doing on vacation when you reach the latter part of your 30s. However, flights into Boston started going up and rental cars were still astronomical, so when I got an email for super cheap flights back to Spain (we'd gone in October a couple of years ago, too), I figured, why go to Boston when we can go to Barcelona for the same price?

When we'd gone to Spain two years ago, Brian had mentioned wanted to spend a couple of days in Malta, but flights out of Madrid were much longer and involved layovers, so we decided to skip it and check out Mallorca instead. Then this last summer, I tried to get flights to Malta in July, but timing didn't work out so we went to Greece in June instead. It's a tough life, lol. Anyway, I checked out flights from Barcelona to Malta, and they were only a couple of hours on a non-stop flight for less than $100 each, so the discussion then became, "How long do we want to spend in Spain and how long do we need in Malta?" Travel "during" Covid is still a little tricky and involves SO. MUCH. PAPERWORK. I felt like I was buying a house. Going to the EU had quite a few documents and QR codes and forms to fill out and we had to have our rooms booked so they could trace us if anything happened. Plus, we had to have our Vaccination cards with us and still get tested to get back into the US. For Malta, you can't even go under any circumstances if you're not vaccinated, so we just had to prove our status and we were set. We decided that, since we'd already been to Spain once, we'd spend a full day and a half there at the beginning and a day there at the end, and spend the majority of our time in Malta.

Our flight landed in Barcelona mid-morning, so after verifying all of our paperwork, we made our way to the rental car agency to pick up our ride. Well, I'd messed up and reserved the car from 9 am to 6 am the next morning instead of at 6 am on the day of our flight to Malta. I asked if there was anyway I could modify my reservation to return the car a day later, but they weren't able to make any changes so we agreed to just bring the car back that evening so we wouldn't have to wake up super early. That led to a little bit of a change of plans in our itinerary, but it worked out really nicely once it was all set and done.

We got everything situated and hit the road north to a really cool Monastery up on a mountain called Montserrat.  It was very reminiscent of Meteora in Greece. We drove up a windy road around the mountain and it was 75 degrees and sunny and perfect. We could have taken a train or even a gondola, but the drive was lovely. 

We walked around the Monastery and the church, famous for housing one of the only black Madonna statues in existence and the first printing press ever in a Monastery (it still works, by the way). The Madonna was FOUND in a cave in 880 and is made out of wood, which I thought was pretty cool. 

If you look closely in the picture below, you an see the funicular track in the little canyon. I couldn't resist when I saw it...a little nod to the Swiss Alps.

We had to wait in line to see the Madonna statue for a little while, but that gave us ample time to take in all of the detail in the Basilica.

There was also a museum there complete with original Picassos and pieces by Dali and Caravaggio and Monet...pretty amazing really. 

Then, we took the funicular up the mountain. There were several little chapels and buildings scattered all over the mountain to explore. 

See that little rectangular hole beneath the rock right there in the middle? There was a teeny tiny little snake in there and got spooked when I approached to take this picture. It was actually so cute, I just couldn't get a good pic of it's face without using a flash and I didn't want to scare it to death. 

We actually split up and Brian went west and I went east and we met back up at the Funicular after a couple of hours to get back down. I could have spent an entire day just exploring those mountains and the trails woven throughout.

From there, we drove straight back to the airport to drop off our car and take a bus to the subway to our motel for the night. 

I booked a place, last minute, in the Gothic quarter and the location was incredible. It was perfect for walking and we were able to just explore for the rest of the day. We walked through cathedrals and museums and just soaked it all in. 

The following morning, we grabbed cappuccinos and continued our exploration of the city, starting with the Sagrada Familia - the famous cathedral designed by Gaudi and Josep Maria Subirachs. It was pretty far from the Gothic Quarter, but it was a beautiful morning, so we had no problem walking and taking in the area. It blew. my. mind. 

The cathedral was very unique. Each side was completely different architecturally. The Gaudi side had the most intricate detail of anything I've ever seen. From a distance, it looked to me like melting wax, but up close you could just stare at the façade and little things kept popping out to me. I also hadn't realized that it's construction was never finished.

The interior was absolutely amazing and bright and had actually really good vibes. The left side was all stained glass in cool colors - blue and green and purple...reminded me of heaven. The right side was all stained glass in warm colors - red and yellow and orange...like hell (at least that was my interpretation). We also lucked out to have the organ playing while we were there. 

The other side of the cathedral was my favorite...more of a modern style that I just couldn't get enough of. 

After a while there, we decided to grab some KFC across the street, and shortly after sitting down for lunch, it started pouring rain. Like, torrential downpour. Everybody gathered against the walls and under the awning outside and we just enjoyed our fried chicken and relaxed while waiting for it to let up a little bit. Brian bought us an umbrella and we walked back to the motel, where our bags were waiting for us before our flight that night into Valletta.