I found several posts discussing visting Montserrat, but not in a specific thread, so I thought I would start one after my visit yesterday.

There are several ways to visit Montserrat; by private car, by bus (once daily), or via mass transit/local train. I chose the train.

The train is the R5 that runs from Barcelona – Plaça Espanya to Manresa. I got the train information from one of the staffed Tourist Information kiosks in the city. One can either do the basic travel-only option (which is what I did) or buy a ticket from the TI that includes the travel, entrance fee to the monastary, and a meal. I bought my ticket at the Plaça Espanya the day before and let me tell you, it is really difficult to find the correct location within the station. I am really glad I took the time to buy the ticket the day before and find out where to go to catch the R5 train. The best advice I can give you is when you are inside the station to look for signs directing you to the lime green FGC trains https://www.fgc.cat/en/fgc-network/l...panya-manresa/. The best street entrance will be if you are looking at the statues and water fountain in the center of the traffic circle and the two Venitian towers will be on your RIGHT side.

Once you get into the FGC part of the station, you will then start seeing signs for the R5 train. Downstairs, at the platform level, there are kiosks to buy the tickets to Montserrat. The screens start in Spanish, but there's an option to switch them to a different language. I found a helpful FGC staffer walking around and my Spanish is just good enough for me to get the correct information.

From the R5, you need to decide how you are going to get up the mountain to the monastery. The faster route is via the cable car (what we in the US would call an aerial tram or a one-way gondola lift). The other option is via the slower rack railway. You need to think about which method you are going to use if you want to buy a round ticket at the Plaça Espanya station as there's a small discount vs. one-ways. The round trip locks you into the same method up and down the mountain and I wanted to try both, so I bought a one-way in Barcelona and then a second one-way in Montserrat.

The R5 runs every hour or so; there were two trains during the 0800 window for inbound commuters so I took the 0816 train. The train has quad seating (think the old Southwest airlines seating) so you can either ride facing the direction of travel or facing backwards. There's a small luggage rack above the seats for a backpack/purse/briefcase. Note that this is a mass transit commuter train and not a passenger train, so do not expect plush accommodations and don't bring any luggage. I did see there was a restroom in the first car of the train, though. For my run from Barcelona to Montserrat, the train was pretty empty; maybe 1/3 full. On the way back, around 1500, the train was standing room only for the majority of the ride.

It's a little over an hour to get to the Montserrat stops (more on that in the posts below); there's about 20 stops along the way. Some of the stops are underground but the line runs at surface level for the most part. The last 20 min or so is quite pretty as you wind though the base of the mountains. I found the views on the right side of the train to be better than the left.