Montserrat Mountain Detail in Black and White

I've tried to rescue a bad image, originally taken in color that I thought deserved an opportunity just for you to contemplate the impressive eroded monoliths, the capricious carvings mother nature has left on its walls, the convergence of lines coming from every angle that altogether constitute what is known as Montserrat mountain. Maybe you ought to check these posts: Montserrat, the Jagged Magic Mountain and Montserrat, The Serrated Mountain.

Montserrat: The Serrated Mountain

One of the most distinctive features of Montserrat mountain range is its jagged, serrated silhouette (mont + serrat). The eroded conglomerate formations made of sedimentary rock in this natural park near Barcelona can be seen from the distance. When you approach the menhir-like tips you have this strange feeling of entering some kind of magic world, an impossible landscape in which Mother Nature invested a great deal of imagination. Besides the compulsory visit to Montserrat monastery, and if you have time enough to trek in the area, do check other routes organized by towns spread all over the mountain slopes. To give you just an example: How to get to St. Benet Monastery (above in the image) departing from Monistrol de Montserrat. More details here: Monastery of St. Benet

Balloon By Montserrat

There's nothing like a good landscape and a big balloon with shiny colors standing out against some mountain walls and a deep blue sky. Unfortunately some of them show off some publicity sometimes like this Caixa Manresa (a local bank) logo. Obviously banks tend to inflate big balloons every now and then, they rise and fall, and on many occasions they blow up or get drifted away. This one was firmly tied up to the ground just in case. Behind it the beautiful mountain of Montserrat.

Montserrat: The Jagged Magic Mountain

The mountain of Montserrat used to be part of a delta in the Terciary Period. Sediments came from a mountain range located on what today is the Mediterranean Sea and were deposited on a narrow shallow sea that reached the Atlantic Ocean. From those times are the conglomerate rocks present in the area which are very resistant and that form those familiar monoliths that Gaudi perhaps evoked in his famous knights of La Pedrera's chimney stacks. In between the monoliths there are fractures of clay continuously altered by erosion thus the isolation of the big solid structures and the numerous caves. I mention all this because I was always amazed when some geology teacher back in my childhood days said: "You see these layers here, well, this region was once under the sea" - and you wondered, "how come!, we are miles away!". So this post goes to all those would-be scientists who still feel nostalgic about long gone field excursions.

Monserrat Mountain: Barcelona Road Landscape

I took this picture of the Mountain of Montserrat from a gas station on my way out of Barcelona last weekend. As I had already mentioned Montserrat in my previous post about Torre Agbar, I decided to show this landscape image. Its jagged silhouette is an omnipresent travel company along the road as it extends through Bages, Anoia and Baix LLobregat comarques, in Barcelona province. You should know that Mare de Deu de Monserrat is the patroness of Catalonia, but that´s another story. Find out more about Montserrat Mountain.

See Monserrat Mountain Picture on a Google Earth Map.