Sant Llorenc Del Munt

I went on a hike on Saturday to a place called Sant Llorenc Del Munt.  It is a Monastery on top of a mountain about 1,100 meters above sea level. 

We woke up around 8 and aimed to get on the train at 9 to a smaller city inland called Terrassa.  This is a Catalan city in the mountains and another place that I will be going to later is called Montserrat.  When we got to Terrassa we took a cab to the mountain.  We told the cab driver to drive us to a path called Con Robert.  He dropped us off in what looked like a very expensive neighborhood with nice houses and told us to go up the road and take a left.  There was no trail and only a large cliff.  We walked back and ran into a guy walking his dog, who told us the right way to go.  It was about a half a kilometer walk just to the trail that the cab could have drove.  It also was not the Con Robert trail but a much more difficult trail to hike up.  The dog was very cheerful and cute.

We started hiking up and it was pretty steep.  I had no problem climbing up but we were with some city girls who took their time.  At first I was doubting the fact that they could complete the hike but in the long run I am glad they came.  They were a lot of fun and slowed us down so that we could enjoy the scenery.  If they didn't come we would have just rushed up the hike instead of taking in the view and landscape.  After the first climb we stopped to take a group photo with our final destination in the background.

I though we did the timed picture but I guess my roommate Jourdan took the picture.  If you look closely right above us is a building on the top of the mountain.  That is where we wanted to go.  Along the way we took our time and enjoyed the scenery.  It took us about 2 hours to get to the top.  Here are a few pictures from along the way

 This is Montserrat

 This was a cliff and a very long way down to the bottom.  No picture could really capture the feeling of standing close to the edge

When we got to the top we took another group photo that in my mind came out extremely well

We drew some attention from this picture and a few other groups did the same thing.  I love the way the shadows look, the background, and how we are all just silhouettes.  There was also some guy filming with a really big camera who said that we would be in some video in 2-3 months.  He gave us the website address but I have not checked it out yet.

The Monastery was a lot newer than I had expected.  The it was built in 1876, but I was expecting it to be hundreds of years old or something.  There was also a restaurant and a bar up top and there were a lot of people there.  The best part about the top was that you could see the Pyrenees Mountains about 100 KM away.  You could see the snow caps and the jagged mountain range.  My camera is not that great and you can't really see them in my picture.

We started walking down, this time following the Con Robert trail but when we got to the bottom we were confused about where to go.  We were expecting some sort of information booth or bus or taxi service but there was nothing.  So we decided to start walking.  Along the way we passed some very nice houses.  The people that lived here were extremely wealthy.  They had nice cars, beautiful houses, pools, great views, gates, and many many dogs.  Here are some pictures

The houses were hard to get pictures of because they all had fences and gates but they were amazing.  We ended up walking about 2.5 km to a bus stop where we had some snacks and called taxis to come pick us up.  

By the time I got home I was extremely tired and took about a 3 hour nap from 5-8.  We probably walked between 6 and 8 miles throughout the whole day, although it is really hard to tell because we didn't really take a marked trail up the mountain thanks to our crappy taxi drivers.  Although most of the pictures came out pretty well, none of them can really capture how steep the mountain was or how far you could see to the horizon.  This has been my best experience here so far and it ranks among the most amazing places I have ever been in the entire world.  Now I can't wait till we come back to climb Montserrat which is more touristy but apparently even more amazing with rich history, caves, and numerous temples along the hike up.

From Wednesday to Friday all IES students are going to Valencia and have class off.  We are going to some museums, going to a winery, and some more stuff while there so it should be fun.  My next post will probably be Friday or some time after that