There are very few virgins left in Spain..

"There are very few virgins left in Spain, and you are going to see one of them" said the hotel clerk as we were leaving for the day heading to the Monastery in Monteserrat located in the mountains about 30 minutes outside of Barcelona. We had just had that wonderful breakfast, but with the addition of the most delicious churros. However I later found out that the breakfast cost about 50 American dollars each ! I'm glad it was good.  Anyway, on with our trip to the Monastery we were told by our good friends and world travelers Paul and Monty that this was a must see partly because the monastery has one of the worlds few Black Madonnas. So we got directions and went on our way. We were told it would take no more than 40 minutes to get there. WRONG. We managed to get lost 4 times along the way so it ended up being a 2 hour adventure. No one died, it was fine. It was totally worth it. The monastery is built into this very unique mountain with really interesting rock formations. The mountain itself is said to hold spiritual powers and there have been numerous UFO sightings there. We took a funicular up the mountain, it was a very steep climb, made me a bit nervous. After coming back down we went inside the church, yes I did Mom. We saw the virgin, asked her to send blessings to my Mother before we left. It was a beautiful church, as grand as any in Italy. We had a little snack before we headed back to our hotel which took about 35 minutes. We spent a quiet night at the hotel as we wanted to get an early start in the morning for our 400 mile drive to France. I even skipped dinner, that might not happen again,especially in France. I am posting pictures of our day at the monastery, the $50 breakfast, the view from the funicular, and us at the top. I love you Mom. Peace out.