Montserrat

Barcelona & Montserrat

Barcelona from the air, between the sea and the hills behind it, with the street grid of the Eixample.

Late May in Barcelona: long days, clear skies and warm evening light. The city first appears from the air, spread out between the sea and the hills behind it, with the regular street grid of the Eixample clearly visible and the beaches strung along the shore.

Barcelona

The Palau Nacional on Montjuïc at sunset and after dark, Tibidabo against the sky, the hill of crosses in Park Güell and the city beach in the evening.

The first evening is on Montjuïc. The Palau Nacional, built for the 1929 International Exposition and now home to the National Art Museum of Catalonia, turns golden in the setting sun, towers and dome alike. After dark, from its steps, you look down on the four illuminated columns and, below them, Plaça d'Espanya, with the avenues running off into the city.

Parc de la Ciutadella

The Cascada fountain, built for the 1888 Universal Exposition, above the park's pond.

Park Güell

Gaudí's entrance pavilions, ceramic mosaics and stone viaducts, with the Sagrada Família in the distance.

On May 26, Park Güell, conceived by Antoni Gaudí in the early 20th century as a garden suburb on a hill in the north of the city and later turned into a public park. The entrance pavilions have rippling roofs and turrets clad in shards of colored ceramic, and the serpentine bench on the main terrace is covered in the same mosaic. Viaducts of rough stone rest on slanting columns, and on the park's highest hill a stone mound carries three crosses. From up here you see the Sagrada Família, under construction since 1882, cranes still above its towers, and the sea beyond. Park Güell is part of the UNESCO listing of Gaudí's works. The same day, in the Parc de la Ciutadella, laid out on the site of the old citadel and host of the 1888 Universal Exposition, the monumental Cascada fountain rises above a pond, and at sunset the outline of Tibidabo, with the church on its summit, stands against a golden sky.

El Bruc

The jagged ridge of Montserrat above the road from El Bruc, and the abbey buildings seen from the mountain.

On May 28, Montserrat, about 50 km northwest of Barcelona. The conglomerate massif, with rounded rocks and stone pinnacles shaped by erosion, rises abruptly from the Llobregat valley to 1,236 m at Sant Jeroni; its jagged outline is visible from afar on the road from El Bruc. On a ledge halfway up the mountain sits the Benedictine abbey of Santa Maria de Montserrat, and the surrounding paths open onto views across the hills of Catalonia.

Montserrat

Rounded conglomerate rocks, the Llobregat valley and the views from the paths around the abbey.

The way back leads through Collserola Natural Park, with its forests on the hills behind the city and Barcelona and the sea spread out below, and the day ends on the city beach in the evening light.

Collserola

The wooded hills behind the city, with Barcelona and the sea in the distance.