Days 1-2 (August 21-22, 2025): A Rough Start! Sitges > Montserrat > Manresa

After the disappointment of our flight cancellation on Wednesday evening, our WestJet “relief flight” did takeoff on time on Thursday evening, at the same scheduled time. It was a packed flight and a fairly smooth one over the Atlantic. We were served a nice chicken dijon tray just after midnight (Halifax time) and, after a completely sleepless night for both of us, we landed in Barcelona, just ahead of schedule, at 9:30 AM on Friday morning.

When we got to our car rental company, they wouldn’t rent me the car because I didn’t have an international drivers license. I have driven cars all over the world, even in Africa, and I’ve only been asked for an International drivers license once. I do have a valid one, which I got from CAA, but I just didn’t bring it with me, because I had no idea that Spain, as an EU member, would require it. $100 later, I was able to get one online after some doing and finally get the car rental resolved. It was 11:40 AM when we set out from Barcelona. 

We drove down the Mediterranean coast to the town of Sitges, a beach resort town, which was absolutely crawling with tourists. Being so close to Barcelona, it is extremely popular with people from all over Europe, who are craving a bit of summer sand and sea. After getting a quick sense of Sitges life on the Mediterranean, we headed inland and started climbing into the mountains. Our original plan was to spend the night in Tarragona further down the coast, which has lots of Roman ruins, and then set out on Friday morning for a couple of inland villages. But the WestJet cancellation meant that we had to trim off the first part of our itinerary, including Tarragona. 

We arrived in Montserrat in the early afternoon, and were utterly stunned by the magnitude and the beauty of Montserrat. It reminded us of Utah, where we visited in August 2023. Of course, Montserrat’s popularity isn’t just because of its mountain formations (“Montserrat” means “serrated”), it is also because of the huge monastery and basilica there at the foot of the mountain, which houses the black Madonna, a carved wooden Madonna from Jerusalem that goes back to the beginning of Christendom. Every day, thousands of people pour into the village to see the black Madonna. The lineup is always crazy. After exploring the village, instead of seeing the black Madonna, we opted to take the funicular to the top of Sant Joan, where the views of the monastery and basilica below were stunning.

We were completely gob-smacked by the beauty of the area. From there, we set out for Manresa, where we had accommodations booked for the evening. Manresa is a mediaeval town, and we enjoyed tapas for dinner in the town Square. Being a Friday evening, The restaurants around the Square were packed. It was quite an exciting place to be, and the food was delicious.

By the time we got back to our lodging, we were beyond exhausted. At that point, we hadn’t slept for 32 hours.

So, despite the WestJet delay, we are making the best of things and have really launched into Catalonia with all we have to offer. And we are enjoying it immensely so far. 

+++++++++++++++

-flight pics
-Beach town of Sitges
-vineyard enroute to MontSerrat 
-one of the many amazing tunnels built by the EU
-MontSerrat, the monastery/basilica, and funicular 
-Manresa, where we ate dinner in the square, including its iconic medieval bridge 

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