Day 7 – Saturday 5th July – Montserrat, Tossa De Mar

Some random observations:
· Spanish firemean are called “bombers”.
· Anne ‘s infatuation with policemen is obviously shared with the Spanish woman. While we were driving around today, we saw a poster for “girls night out”, where the entertainment were policemen strippers
· My big beer (see the picture on the blog) is called a Barril Copa Grande O Tanque
· It’s 10:15pm on Sunday night and we’ve just been seated for dinner and the Sangria has just arrived. I’m typing at the dinner table – how rude
· The couple sitting two tables are way from us are wearing matching black tops with white strips. Their kid is wearing a white top with black stripes – it’s quite a picture, in a tragic, my god what were they thinking, kindofaway.
· A group of tubby English chicks sat down at the table next to us last night at 11:30pm. The waiter explained that they weren’t serving dinner any more, to which they replied that they had already eaten once tonight, but were still hungry, so thought they’d have a second meal

Today (Saturday – that’s what I’m writing about) started early, as we had to be out at the airport by 9am to collect the car. Up early at 7am, breakfast at 7:30, taxi at 8:20 to the airport. We had arranged to meet the car man under the statue of Botero – it’s a rather rotund horse. I think Botero is an artist, who paints large people and so maybe for Barcelona Airport he made a symbol for transport being a large horse – who knows.

Collecting the car was simplicity itself, much less forma than on previous occasions. The car this year seems lower spec’d than in previous years – no parking sensors, lights don’t come on automatically, but other than that the standard 307 with a foldaway metal roof. Packed the bags in the car, got in the correct door, headed out on the motorway to Montserrat, missed one turn on the motorway, did a big loop round the motorways, but got to the cable car only minutes after it opened at about 10:15, after filling the car with diesel – 1.34Euros per litre for those who are interested. We caught the cable car to the top, which was scary for both of us as 1.) we don’t like heights and 2.) in one bit it gets very close to the cliff face.

Montserrat is a mountain near Barcelona, in Catalonia, in Spain. It is the site of a Benedictine abbey, Santa Maria de Montserrat, which hosts the Virgin of Montserrat sanctuary and which is identified by some with the location of the Holy Grail in Arthurian myth.
"Montserrat" literally means "jagged (serrated) mountain" in Catalan. It describes the peculiar aspect of the rock formation, which is visible from a great distance. The mountain is composed of strikingly pink conglomerate, a form of sedimentary rock, popular with climbers.
I had expected Montserrat to be a very old monastery, but infact it is a whole town set high up in the mountains and the whole place appears very new. There are hotels, apartments, shops, a museum, restaurants, and all the roads are asphalted, not the usual cobbled streets that we expect in old towns. Nonetheless, it was an interesting place to visit and the monastery itself was very interesting.

After the return cable car ride, which wasn’t nearly as scary as the way up, we got on the road to Tossa De Mar, which took about an hour and a half. Tossa is a lovely little beachside town, with an ancient castle on a hill at one end of the beach. Our hotel is right on the beach, just under the castle. It has a delightful little outdoor restaurant, which makes wonderful paella (and the Sangria isn’t too bad either). Parking in Tossa is a night mare and we had to park on the outskirts of town and carry our bags to the hotel – in 35 degrees heat – without a map, so yes, it was the longest route possible. We had a light lunch about 4pm, had a walk after lunch, took a break and then were back out for dinner at 10:30pm. Dinner was a very nice paella, then a walk up to the top of the hill to see the castle, then back down to the beach to watch a game of beach soccer at 1am on Sunday morning.

We collapsed into bed at the end of first day touring, exhausted at about 1:30am