Day Trip to Montserrat & Lunch at a Farmhouse, Barcelona

The site is beautiful. Riding a cable car is always fun for kids (though there are cable cars within the city of Barcelona which are closer). There was no time to actually explore the mountain peak as we spent the majority of the "free time" waiting to get into the basilica. Likewise, there is no time for the museums either. After the basilica, you hang out and take a few pictures and time is up. The basilica itself was super beautiful on the inside.

We did not get to see the boys choir as our time slot to get into the basilica just missed out on that. It would had been nice. We probably missed it because the bus was late.

Lunch was actually very very good. There was tapas and roast meat and wine. Very hearty. You work an appetite walking around.

Lucas was very good at providing information, but the time at Monserrat was too short to see everything desired. Need at least another hour or 2 at the monastery.

excellent guide, excellent lunch.

The lunch at the farmhouse was amazing. Excellent food and quite fun.

Montserrat is a scenic wonder and a beautiful place, however this was a large group tour so my review of it is significantly impacted by that fact. I’ve never taken a bus tour so my expectations might be skewed by my tendency to take small group tours or explore on my own. Originally this tour appealed to me because I heard many great things about the hiking. Additionally the fact that I started at 10:30 (versus 8) was originally a bonus but in retrospect the start time and large group size meant we didn’t get free time at Monstserrat until 1 pm and I found it too hot to hike. As someone with no large group tour experience I found a lot of time wasted with just the logistics and transport. For example, our meeting time was 10:30 and everyone was on time but each party had to sign in on 1 tablet and fill out a bunch of information so that took about 15-20 minutes. Then we had to walk 5 or 6 blocks to the bus. So we didn’t actually get moving until at least 11. We arrived at Montserrat at about 12:20 but all the bus parking spots were full so we waited another 5-10 minutes before getting off the bus. There were 2 guides with us so we broke into smaller groups and out tour began. The tour did not include getting close to the Black Madonna but instead included about 2-3 stops outside the monastery where information was given and one stop before the Basilica where info was given. This part of the tour lasted about 15 minutes then we were in our own for 75 minutes. At 2:10 we gathered to take the funicular down the mountain. Then we met our bus and drove about 30 minutes to the farmhouse for lunch. We had lunch inside the farmhouse between 3:15-4:30. We were served a few tapas, bread, a green salad, grilled meats, wine and sorbet. Coffee and tea were offered but not included and had to be paid for separately. The meal was good and I enjoyed the company of the other travelers. We got back to Barcelona at 5:30.

Small group tour-nice to meet other travelers. Guides were fun and thoughtful.

For this (larger) tour we had Richard as our tour guide- he was funny and engaging. He clearly was having fun on the trip- which made it fun for us! Very informative

Great experience. There is so much to see that the free time allowed was not enough to fully appreciate the location.

Tour guide was young and inexperienced. The day was too long. We wasted a lot of time at Montserrat sight. Food at lunch was okay. In hindsight, would rather have spent the day doing something else in Barcelona.