Montserrat, Spain.

Our tour of Barcelona included a side trip to nearby Montserrat and a tour of the monastery, where the Black Virgin of Montserrat statue is displayed. I am getting ahead of myself, though. Photos of the cathedral are featured in an upcoming Travel Tuesday post.

When we exited the monastery’s central courtyard and were back on the sidewalk, we noticed the cable car tracks that appeared to go straight up the mountain. The Sant Joan Funicular was constructed in 1918 to provide a convenient way to reach the Sant Joan Chapel, located at the summit of Montserrat Mountain.

We had some time to spend before our tour guides appeared to pick us up, so Gary and I decided to ride the funicular. Pat and Lynn decided not to accompany us on the cable car. Gary and I started out for the entrance, and when we discovered a line of people waiting, we realized that our guides would return, probably even before we got on the funicular. Oh, well, I guess we will save it for next time, whenever that might be. I would have to be satisfied with the photo I captured.

By the way, there are two funiculars at Montserrat: the Sant Joan Funicular and the Santa Cova (Holy Grotto) Funicular. The Santa Cova Funicular takes pilgrims most of the way to the grotto, where it is believed the Black Virgin sculpture was discovered. In my research, I found several trip advisor reviews that indicated the Santa Cova Funicular was not operational due to maintenance, but I found no other reference to the funicular’s operations. Even if the Santa Cova Funicular isn’t operating, visitors can still walk a 1-mile trail (1.5 km) to the site of the grotto.

About the photo: I captured it with my Samsung S23U and exported the JPEG image into Adobe Lightroom Classic for basic tweaks. The bright blue sky and mountain terrain needed very little from Luminar Neo where I sent it for final processing with Accent AI. I then exported it into 2K HD and posted it on my Flickr site for a better view than here in WordPress. You can click on the image to see the view from my Flickr album.

I encourage fellow bloggers to create their own Cellpic Sunday posts. I never have a specific topic for this feature, and the only rules are that the photo must be captured with a cell phone, iPad, or another mobile device… If you have an image from a drone or even a dashcam, that’s also acceptable. The second rule is to link your challenge response to this post or leave a comment here with a link to your post in the comment. Oh, you don’t have to post it on a Sunday.

John Steiner