Montserrat, Hike to Sant Jeroni

View a top St Jeroni

Introduction

Just an hour's drive away from the busy city of Barcelona, Montserrat is a place of nature, spirituality and religion. Home to the famous Benedictine monastery and the Black Madonna, Montserrat draws pilgrims, hikers, and curious travellers alike. Being more of hikers than religious followers, in this post I share with you a guide on hiking from the Montserrat Monastery to Sant Jeroni, the highest peak in the Montserrat mountains. The best months for this hike are in spring and fall. The summer months become too hot, but still doable, and the winter months may be too cold. This time, we did it on the 4th of May, which gave us good cooling weather!

Getting There

The hike starts at the main street where the Monastery is located. We hired a car from Barcelona, and it took about 1 hour to 1 hour and 15 minutes to get there by car. There are two possible places to park your car:

1. First, is to park directly at the parking lot at the Montserrat Monastery and museum. This has around 400 parking spaces (source). This can get full quite quickly, especially on weekends. Parking prices are here.

2. The next option is to park at Cremallera de Monistrol Vila and from here, take a scenic funicular/tram ride to the Montserrat main street. Parking here is free, and there are 1000 parking spaces. Prices for the tickets are 14.50 EUR for a return ticket as of now, May 2025.

For our trip, we wanted to park directly at the Monastery and skip the tram, since we are already going to hike the beautiful mountains and take in the sights later on. However, the car park turned out to be overcrowded and we ended up parking outside the car park along the side of the road like many others who were there.

The Hike

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  Map of the hike

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  Elevation

GPX file:

Hike to Sant Jeroni.gpx

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(Note that this GPX was recorded from our parking spot ~20 min walk from the Monastery)

This hike is a relatively relaxing hike and takes about 1h 30min up and 1h 15 minutes going down. The hike starts as you walk through the streets of Montserrat towards the funicular stations. There are many vendors there that sell cheeses, nuts and various other snacks for you to take on the hike if you haven't already brought some. There are usually many visitors here to see the monastery and museum. Although we went on a Sunday, it wasn't overly crowded. There are free public toilets here for anyone needing them.

Streets of Montserrat

Keep walking down until you reach the end, where there are a few water taps or fountains and a statue behind it. Take the stairs on the left of the fountain to start the hike. The trail is quite simple and there are obvious signs along the way to guide you.

Take the stairs left of the fountain

The first part of the hike is the toughest, with constant stairs going up and up. After about 20 minutes of going up the initial part of the stairs in the shadows of the mountains, the path opens up into a space with more rocky terrain, but still going up stairs for about another 20 minutes.

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After all the stairs climbing, the route becomes less inclined and you enter into a more forested and covered terrain. The trail here is relaxing as you are covered from the sun, and the incline is less steep.

Trail through the woods

After another 20 minutes of walking, you will finally reach the last section of the hike where the trees thin out and you are exposed on top of the rocky formations. The last part is steep as well, but well worth the effort, as you are now surrounded by many beautiful mountainous landscapes.

Nearing the top of Sant Jeroni

Finally, you take the last few steps up to the very top, where there is a platform viewpoint signifying the top. From here, you can see a telecommunications tower at a nearby peak and the whole range of mountains in Montserrat.

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  Mountains around Montserrat

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  Top of Montserrat

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  Mountains

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  Selfie

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  At the viewpoint

After a short lunch break at the top, we took some more photos and hiked back down. The journey down took only about 1 hour as it was all descending, and the terrain was easy. We visited the monastery and shops below and went back to Barcelona, happy we accomplished our goal!

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  At Montserrat

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  At Montserrat

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  At Montserrat

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  Local cheese with honey

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  Candied almonds

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  At Montserrat

Final Words

The hike to Sant Jeroni is a great hike for those already visiting Montserrat. It is a perfect hike for beginners. We really enjoyed it and it was a perfect warmup for our next mountain in 4 days, Pico Aneto! Do bring along some water and sunscreen, as you will be under the sun for quite a bit in the summer.