Montserrat

Yesterday evening, our sixteen year old grandson sent John a message, asking if we'd done much that day. "Been to Lidl", he replied. It's not all sunshine and travelling you know. We also told him about the street bull fight we'd seen in Onda. "That's nuts", he said. We had to agree, yes it was.

We left early this morning as we wanted to stop at Reus. The birthplace of Antoni Gaudi, a modernist architect. We always enjoy travelling early on a Sunday morning, when the roads are much quieter, and arrived mid morning in the town, found the safe, central parking for campervans, and set off.

We followed the Route Del Modernisme. Some of the buildings were impressive, some a little strange and others just too fussy.

At the Estacio Enologica, where they study wine and winemaking, we could hear the shrieking of parakeets, and stopped to watch them high up in the pine treas.

Their lime green plumage, a camouflage amongst the green needles.

On our tour of the town, we'd seen some fantastic examples of original, Spanish, solid wooden doors and gates. It was a shame to think that some of these over 500 years old were torn down and used as firewood during the Spanish civil war according to Laurie Lee in his autobiography.

Our visit complete, we headed towards the coast to a small bay, at Sitges, but it was busy, and the parking area just a little close to the cliff edge.

O.K. Marge, enough of the coast. Are you ready to climb some mountains? Seriously Marge, we're not joking! We are now 720 metres above sea level, at Monserrat. The mountain road was, interesting, but Marge is an old hand now, and sometimes a little daring on the hairpin beds.

The views were stunning, especially that of the mountains that loomed high above us. The highest peak is 1,236 metres above sea level. Don't worry Marge, we'll give that a miss.

Marge is now tucked in the corner of the coach park. A short while ago, one of the security men came over and spoke to us. It was alright for us to stay the night, but we must leave by nine o' clock in the morning. Luckily, we discovered the clocks went back an hour here as well as England, in the early hours of this morning. Why did we think they wouldn't?

As soon as we arrived, we walked out, it was early evening, and still very busy with visitors. As with all popular tourist attractions, it is a little commercialised, but visiting the basilica, which is very close to us, all this was forgotten.

It was stunning. You can access the monastery either by vehicle, train, cable car or on foot, a walk of five to six hours. If you wish to travel higher, then just hop on the funicular railway, which will take you to 1,000 metres above sea level. Your reward when you arrive, a spectacular view of the site of Monserrat. A step too far for us. Marge delivers some spectacular breathtaking, and a lot of the time frightening views. Angela can confirm that. She could see all the way down from her driving seat. Her advice, if you don't like heights look straight at the horizon, oh, until the next hairpin bend!

Not Gaudi, but the typology is out of this world.