Eleven years living here and I have never been up to Montserrat. I know. A friend arrives on the 25th and I have that week off, so it is finally happening. Everything I read says the R5 from Placa Espanya is about an hour and a half to Monistrol, then the rack railway on top of that. Fine. Then the same people say they ended up on the mountain five hours because the queue for the Black Madonna went round the cloister and afterwards they wanted to walk out towards Sant Joan. Has anyone done it with a car and driver instead? What I want to know is whether having someone waiting actually buys you anything, or whether you are still hostage to the funicular timetable either way. We have a table at 8pm and I would rather not be running for a train with a bag of oranges again.
