Montserrat: Make your Own Custom Tour

Posted By : Ryan_H
Love the “choose your own adventure” concept to this tour - you could choose to do a wine tour, have extra time at Monserrat, and/or your start time.
Our guide was Thias and she was amazing - witty, knowledgeable, and organized. Despite some bad weather and a change of access to the basilica, Thias rolled with it and ensured we had a lot of time to explore while still giving us a rundown of the history and background of this beautiful place. All the guides were super friendly, interesting, and helpful. This was a great tour and experience, would highly recommend.
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Posted On : 2024-07-02 09:02:59

Posted By : Lucila_Y
This tour was the best I had in Barcelona. Not only was Montserrat breathtaking, but Lorena as our guide was very knowledgeable, articulate, and entertaining - making the overall experience perfect! I shall cherish this trip to Montserrat for the rest of my life and I know my family will too:)
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Posted On : 2024-06-22 17:06:07

Posted By : J_K_N_KK555
Vince was simply the best tourguide I've had in years. You'll see why throughout my loooong review.

Bottomline: Best tourguide! Fabulous day with Montserrat, Cogwheel Train, Lunch and Wine tasting. I wish I had had more time to explore Montserrat but I got to see plenty anyway! Highly recommended!!!

The tour itself is amazing. We shared a nicely air-conditioned bus with two other groups on the way to Montserrat (very efficient, very environmentally friendly). In there, one of the guides (Anthony) gave us a quick history lesson on Barcelona. Just enough good information to retain.
Then we took the cogwheel train up the mountain. Note that this is not the funicular that is also on the mountain. You could theoretically take the funicular after the train but on this tour there isn't enough time. There's also a cable car but not a part of this tour. The views from the train were great.

Vince then told us more about the mountain, the monks, the school, the basilica, the black madonna, the cheese, Catalonia, pilgrimages and more.... all very interesting stuff.
We then visited the basilica. Fortunately or maybe unfortunately there was a wedding taking place in the basilica so you couldn't get close enough to the altar to take a picture of the big mosaic window but the wedding was fun to see.
After that there's about an hour or maybe even a bit more of free time. Depends on how long you spend in the basilica. You can queue to touch the black madonna, will take around 45 min according to our guide. You can visit the museum that has works by Dali, Picasso, Monet and many more. In my opinion the only painting in there worth seeing was a big blue Dali painting. Many other beautiful paintings but not worth the limited time on the mountain... in my opinion. The third option is walking to a cross that sits on a ledge. From there you get amazing views of the surrounding area but also of the monastery and all of that. If I'd do this tour again, I would choose the walk to the cross. About 25 min to the cross, 15 min back according to Vince.
If you have a few minutes before meeting your guide again, check out the cheese stands. Your guide will definitely point them out to you.

The lunch at the winery was good. Great gazpacho, good chicken with an awesome gravy but the dessert wasn't all that special though. This might not be the same each day though.

We tasted a few wines and my group was so lucky to have Vince, who is also an experienced sommelier and comes from a family of winemakers. This is where he absolutely shined. He had taken us out into the vineyard and taught us a lot about the wine production before then heading inside where we could see the wine cellar from above. Then the tasting. Although I'd only want to buy one out of the 3 we tasted, each wine in the tasting had it's purpose and they were by no means bad wines. Not at all. Very informative and fun tasting. Afterwards there was enough time to buy an extra glass of one of the wines they had on offer that day and sit and enjoy the magnificent view of the vineyard with Montserrat in the background (I tasted a rather expensive but realllly delicios wine from 2018 and ended up buying a couple of bottles to take with me).

I bought a few bottles of wine before heading back to the bus, that took us back to Barcelona.

Vince has since sent me and the other's who requested it, an email with all the different restaurant recommendations, grouped by neighbourhood. For me though, most importantly, he sent me recommendations for cavas he recommended and where I can buy them while here. This is a great example of a tourguide, going above and beyond all my expectations and doing much more than you can assume he will.

This day trip was a great way to spend time and money and you'll have the urge to tip your guide handsomely if you were as lucky as I was :)
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Posted On : 2024-06-22 06:32:54

Posted By : Myles_H
It was a fun little jaunt to Montserrat, and I really liked Berta's description of the monastery; it really brought the history to life.
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Posted On : 2024-06-20 10:52:34

Posted By : Ocean_Pin1007
Thanks, Bel, for telling exciting history and local information. That's helpful to help us manage our time in Montserrat. We love it and think something that can be improved is that the mountain and scenery are way more beautiful than the photos on the website! Haha! It's worth visiting! I'll recommend it to my friends!
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Posted On : 2024-06-20 06:52:09

Posted By : 441bernadettej
Monserrat Full Day Highlights Tour with small group and tour guide BEL

We had the most beautiful day.
Bel was high energy,happy from the first meeting.
She was knowledgeable and proud of Monserrat and her culture.She gave a light and informative history with lots of humour.

As for Monserrat, we were blown away with the beauty,awe at the Basilica and surrounding buildings perched among these incredible mountains,
The surprise visit to the winery was a plus.
A well organised and worthwhile tour.
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Posted On : 2024-06-19 10:21:00

Posted By : 3Stac5
Easy to find meet up location at train station in Barcelona. Bus was a nice, comfy ride with great air conditioning. Our guide was Toni and he was fantastic. His English is excellent and the history he shares is fascinating and entertaining. He has great enthusiasm and does a wonderful job of keeping track of everyone to stay on track with the tour yet we felt we had plenty of time to do what we wanted. It was a great balance. He amazed us remembering faces of the groups on our tour. The information provided at each stop added to our ability to appreciate the beauty and significance without being elaborate and boring. I wish every tour and guide was like Toni. Monseratte is a must see and this is the company to go with, ask for Toni!
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Posted On : 2024-06-16 09:53:03

Posted By : B5751QWaa
Lorena was a wonderful guide! She gave great information and allowed us plenty of time to do some solo stuff while in Montserrat! I loved the views and my time while there. The bonus wine was perfecto 😍
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Posted On : 2024-06-14 03:07:33

Posted By : Steven_M
Good news for Barcelona, bad news for us - it was incredibly cloudy and rainy. So, we couldn't see much! However, our guides were great (albeit, a little forceful on getting you to interact with their questions/answers). Our main guide, Delph, was very knowledgeable and friendly, and she was very empathetic and took care of the children from the others in our group by gathering them under her umbrella during the rain. Berta (spelling?), another guide, provided great information on the drive up and down the mountain. Despite a little chaos from the various options of the tour (some groups were there seeing the winery, others were there without the cogwheel, etc..) leading to various groups within our bus, it was organized. Everything was great, and we were glad we went with this company. Also, I want to say an extra thank you to this company. Our original tour date, the day before, was also super rainy and we could not get a taxi to get to the bus in time (due to the rain). This company was great to work with - quickly relieved my anxiety and didn't make me feel bad or guilty for missing our tour, and they were happy to reschedule us for a tour the next day (they didn't have to do that, so we are so grateful for this company to make sure we had this experience).
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Posted On : 2024-06-13 13:48:58

Posted By : Andrew_L
One of the best days out of the holiday. Berta (our tour guide) was a fantastic, knowledgeable and extremely approachable individual who not only explained the history of Barcelona (Catalonia) in a fun and entertaining way, but also nothing was too much trouble. The trip to montserrat was around an hour but time flew, the cog wheel train was enjoyable taking us to the main site. The basilica was as traditional as it gets with the surrounding views breathtaking. Our tour was finished off by a meal at a local winery (beautiful surroundings once again ) and some obligatory wine tasting complemented by Berta’s knowledge of the location and wine produced there. Great day out and highly recommended.
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Posted On : 2024-06-03 13:42:36