HIKING & HERMITAGES
Hiking Montserrat — Trails, Hermitages and Sant Jeroni
Above Montserrat's monastery, marked trails lead to old hermitages, a holy grotto and the massif's highest point — what's up there and how the paths connect.
See Montserrat day trips on GetYourGuide ↗A network of trails above the monastery
Beyond the basilica and the crowds gathered around it, Montserrat opens into a genuine network of marked hiking trails threading across the ridge, connecting a scatter of old hermitages — small chapels once used by monks or hermits seeking solitude on the mountainside. Many of these are now ruins, some have been partly restored over the years, and most are linked by paths that range from easy, gentle walks to proper, rocky hikes with real elevation gain. The two funiculars leaving from the monastery shortcut the steepest early climbing, dropping hikers off directly at trailheads rather than requiring the full ascent on foot first.
Santa Cova, the holy grotto
Santa Cova, the cave linked to the legend of the Black Madonna's discovery, sits below the monastery and can be reached either by the Santa Cova funicular or on foot along the Camí del Rosari, a path originally carved into the mountainside in the 1690s. Along that path, sculptural groups depicting the mysteries of the Rosary were added between 1896 and 1916, with contributions from major Catalan architects including Antoni Gaudí and Josep Puig i Cadafalch. That history makes the walk down to the grotto a small open-air gallery of Catalan modernist sculpture, quite apart from its religious significance.
Sant Joan and the upper trailheads
The Sant Joan funicular climbs from the monastery to a cluster of trailheads set higher on the massif, near the ruins of the old Sant Joan hermitage that gave the funicular its name. From this upper station, several marked routes fan out across the ridge in different directions, including the main path toward Sant Jeroni, making the station the natural starting point for anyone planning to spend real time hiking on the mountain rather than only visiting the monastery and its immediate surrounding viewpoints below at the base of the climb.
Sant Jeroni, the summit walk
Sant Jeroni is the highest point of the entire massif at 1,236 metres, and the trail there from the Sant Joan funicular's upper station is a proper hike rather than a casual stroll — several kilometres each way, with real elevation gain and rocky, uneven ground underfoot in places. It rewards the effort with a genuinely panoramic summit, taking in the ridge's needle-like rock towers below, the flat Catalan plain stretching out beyond them, and, on a clear day, the Pyrenees visible on the far horizon to the north, well beyond the immediate valley.
Sant Miquel and shorter viewpoints
For a shorter walk with a real payoff, the path to Sant Miquel — a viewpoint and cross near the ruins of another old hermitage — makes for a much easier outing from the monastery, taking a fraction of the time a full Sant Jeroni hike demands from start to finish. It's a good option for anyone who wants to step away from the basilica crowds for half an hour and get a proper look at the rock formations up close, without committing an entire afternoon to a full mountain hike.
Planning a walk into the day
The trails themselves are generally well marked, but the terrain is genuinely rocky and mountainous rather than a paved, level path, so proper footwear matters here more than the valley-floor parts of a Montserrat day might suggest. It's also noticeably cooler and windier up on the exposed ridge than down in Barcelona, so a layer is worth carrying even in summer months. If a hike to Sant Jeroni or one of the outlying hermitages is genuinely the point of your visit, build in real, unhurried time for it rather than treating it as a rushed afterthought to the monastery.
More things to do nearby
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