‹ Region
The big city and the land to the west — Barcelona's layered intensity, Vic's real Saturday market, and Montserrat's monastery high in the mountains.
Just an hour south by train from our door to Plaça Catalunya. Gaudí, the Gothic Quarter, the Boqueria — enough for a full day, or an easy afternoon.
Trains leave every half hour from Pineda de Mar. The line runs along the coast almost the whole way, so the journey becomes part of the outing: sea on one side, the Maresme on the other, eucalyptus and vineyards rising into the hills.
A cathedral town in the heart of an old inland plain, ringed by oak woods. Tuesdays and Saturdays are market days beneath the arcades of Plaça Major — one of the most beautiful squares in Catalonia.
The monastery rises out of a massif of strange, serrated rock — visible from Santa Susanna on a clear day. A day trip worth making for the boys' choir at noon and the cable-car views alone.
