Take a Holiday in Spain... Days 3 & 4

On Monday, we boarded our Oak Hall coach with 50 or 60 others and headed about an hour west of Barcelona to the serrated mountain, Montserrat. The Benedictine monastery on the mountain has been there since medieval times. Here is the view of the mountain that we got from the coach. I was surprised that the coach was able to drive 3/4 of the way up the mountain to the monastery. It was a long way up.

We had lunch with three girls from our group: Kathrine, Catherine, and Sue. We all went together to hear the famous boy's choir sing. This is the view from the terrace of the little cafe where we ate.

Here is part of the monastery. It is quite a tourist attraction these days, which is no surprise as the views are amazingly lovely. It also a very big pilgrimage site where catholics come to pray to the Black Madonna statute.

We heard the boys choir sing here inside the Santa Maria de Montserrat. Catherine decided to queue to see the Black Madonna out of curiosity. The line was enormous!

After briefly exploring the church compound we rode the funicular (I know, what a word!) further up the mountain. It was a little two car train similar to what they use for all those Incline rides on hills and mountains in the States. Katherine wanted to see the art gallery, so she rode funicular back down.


We decided to walk back down to the coach instead of taking the train because it was just so beautiful. The pictures can't capture the grandeur and the scale of how far you were able to see.



There were also hundreds of different beautiful wildflowers growing up near the top of the mountain.
The walk down the mountain was lovely. I think Montserrat is one of the prettiest places I've seen.
This picture gives a little perspective as to the size of the rocks.





After a great day out we rode two hours back and some dinner at the hotel as a group. Then Brian spoke on Christ as Noah. It was about 8pm at that point and poor Iain was too tired out to listen to Daddy, so we went upstairs and I put him to bed.

The next day was a free day and we were anxious to go swimming in the pool! Unfortunately it wasn't really warm enough... so we only had a quick dip. Iain really hated it and cried the entire time! Poor baby.
He was happy to sit in a deck chair and play with Papa's hat though!

Iain had a nap in the room and I laid by the pool reading a bit. After that we headed into town to get some lunch on the beach. We ran into a few others from the group and had lunch with them at some Italian restaurant. Pineda was surprisingly lacking in Spanish restaurants. There were all sorts of German, Dutch, and Italian places catering to the European tourists that flock to the beach. After lunch we strolled about in town.

We discovered a rabbit farm of sorts just a block away from our hotel in someone's yard. There were at least 20 rabbits and some babies as well.

Ahh... feet in the sand at last.

Before Brian had to be back for a meeting and speaking we did manage to sit on the beach for a while. We learned from the pool experience and didn't venture into the water. It was great to be on a sandy beach again. Just like home.
Iain thought the sand was great fun to play in!

After that we headed back to hotel. Brian had a meeting and I tried to get Iain to nap, but he refused to go to sleep. Then we had the meeting and Brian spoke on Joseph and Judah and how they represent Christ (or don't).