A Place of Pilgrimage

Photography by Minerva Bloom. Montserrat is a mountain near Barcelona, in Catalonia. It is the site of a Benedictine abbey, Santa Maria de Montserrat, which hosts the Virgin of Montserrat sanctuary and which is identified by some with the location of the Holy Grail in Arthurian myth. Montserrat literally means jagged (serrated) mountain in Catalan. It describes the peculiar aspect of the rock formation, which is visible from a great distance. The mountain is composed of strikingly pink conglomerate, a form of sedimentary rock, popular with climbers. The abbey can be reached by road, or by cable car, or by Railway. From the abbey, the Funicular railway goes up to the top of the mountain, where there are various abandoned hovels in the cliff faces that were previously the abodes of reclusive monks, also the Santa Cova funicular descends to a shrine.