On my 18 amazing days traveling through Southern Europe, there is one day in particular that stands out above the rest. While we were in Barcelona, Caiti and I took an hour’s train ride outside of Barcelona to the beautiful countryside. At the end of the train ride we came to our destination. Mont Serrat. Mont Serrat is a mountain and our mission was to climb this mountain. It. Was. Huge. And we were up for the challenge, because a certain boy (the only boy, by the way) in our group who had already climbed Mont Serrat when he went to Barcelona implied that he didn’t think we could do it. So we were going to climb to the very tippy top just to show him we could. We got up at 6 am and left our hostel by 7 am so we could have as much time there as possible. We had to take the underground Metro to find the train station to leave from, first. We got there around 9:30 am and our train took us right to the foot of the mountain. It was a little intimidating, I will admit, but I knew we could do it. So we set off to the mountain and realized we couldn’t find the path up, so we had to backtrack to the train station to ask direction to the walking path. Just so you know, to get to the walking path, we had to walk alone the Spanish highway and then sprint across it and then climb behind someone’s house to find the beginning of it. It took us an hour and a half to reach the top of it, and it was an intense hour and a half. It was certainly a hike. But it was definitely worth it. The view from the top is indescribable. The best I can do is that it was breathtakingly beautiful. It was the perfect day, clear blue skies, 65 degrees and the sun was shining glory to God. It was amazing. The higher we got, the more amazing it became. My eyes couldn’t take it all in fast enough. When we got to the Monastery which is the destination of the hike, we had a small picnic with the food we brought along and we sat and looked out at what all God had created. I was so at peace with the world in those moments. It was stunning. We sat and looked out at the world for almost an hour straight, sometimes talking, sometimes just staring at everything, trying to imprint it into our brains forever. It was a perfect day!

After lunch we hiked some of the nature trails that were at the top of the mountain. It was so incredibly beautiful. We hiked and hiked and hiked and before we knew it, 7 hours had passed and we had to go back to Barcelona. It was such a wonderful day and I advise anyone who goes to Barcelona to hike Mont Serrat, you won’t regret it!