Trip to Spain and Italy (September 2011)
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Despite being high up compared to the surrounding countryside, we realized that we were
not yet at the top! So up to the peak of Sant Jeroni we hiked!
"Montserrat is a mountain that astonishes you the moment you see it, for it is so different
from all others. Seen from the distance, looming up alone out of the landscape,
it is bound to attract your attention. Depending on where you see it from, its silhouette
is reminiscent of the toothed blade of a saw. And here you have the clue to its name,
for the Catalan word 'Montserrat' means 'sawn mountain.'
"But you will find this name even more felicitous as you approach the mountain and start
climbing. The shape of the rocks might make you imagine that Montserrat had been carved,
wrought or sawn by some prodigious hand. In fact the poet Verdaguer, one of the great epic
writers in our literary history, envisaged the mountain as something sawn by the angels.
"At all events, whether by angelic hands or natural forces, the saw above a design of
stylized crags is the heraldic symbol of Montserrat."
[Quoted text from http://www.abadiamontserrat.net.]