Semi Private Montserrat & Wine Country

Our Montserrat & Wine Tours combine this unique, almost spiritual, experience with a remarkable lunch of Catalan fare, followed by an exclusive visit and tasting at a small vineyard in the Penedès wine region. Legend has it that in the 9th century, shepherds claimed to have spotted the image of the black Madonna in a cave on Montserrat. The original carving was discovered and removed by local religious figures, and the first church, followed by the monastery, was established in the 11th century. By the 12th century, news spread far and wide of the miracles of Montserrat. The monastic community settled, which prompted pilgrims from around the world to flock to the sacred mountain, as they still do today. The Monastery of the Virgin was founded in 1025, reconstructed various times, destroyed by Napoleon in 1811 and rebuilt in the late 19th and early 20th century by the Catalan Modernist masters, including Gaudí, himself. It is, in fact, one of the key inspirations to Gaudí’s Sagrada Familia.