A monestary and cava tour

That is (kindof) an odd pairing, if you ask me. But, I wanted to see both the monestary at Montserrat and get in a little cava tour and tasting.

I'm not a fan of the large tour bus, so I searched high and low for a small (6-8 people) tour. Viola! I booked the Montserrat and Cava tour through Private Tours Barcelona. It was a nice tour; the other travelers were fun and interesting; the sights were good. It wasn't one of the best tours (Cotswolds and Absolute Touring), but it was good, nonetheless.

Our day started with a stop of Friexenet in Sant Sadurni d'Anoia for a cava tour and tasting. Cava is similar to champagne; however it does not come from the champagne region of France (trademark)...just as Chianti is from the Chianti region of Italy (trademark)...so Cava is Spain's version of champagne.

Our next stop was Montserrat. I think the biggest disappointment was spending 30 minutes on the winding roads up to the monestary. I was under the impression that we'd be taking the aerial gondola to the top. Luckily, I was prepared and had pre-emptively taken dramamine or it could have turned ugly.

Once you reach the monestary area, there's a main cathedral that has a boys choir singing at 1pm. Get there early to get a seat! There are plenty of hiking trails, of varying difficulty, to see the surrounding area. We only spent about 2 hours there and it's really best to allocate at least 4 hours, if not a full day.

A few pictures from our day.

Jesse double-fisting his cava.