The origin of Montserrat, the magic mountain, has always been one of the questions asked by those visitors who have never seen these winding shapes before.
Montserrat is a rocky massif traditionally considered the most important and significant mountain in Catalonia (Spain). It is located 30 km from the center of Barcelona between the Anoia, Baix Llobregat and Bages regions.
Montserrat has become a religious benchmark that gathers thousands of pilgrims every year. And it is not surprising, since the black virgin, known as “La Moreneta”, was found in a small cave, Montserrat has always been linked to spirituality.
But this has not always been the case. If you want to know how what we know today as the Montserrat Mountains was formed, you are in the right place.
Where does the name Montserrat come from?
The word mont– means mountain and –serrat means serrated, in Catalan. This name is given to it because of its peculiar morphology, in which it seems as if an attempt had been made to saw it with a giant saw. Both the word serrat and serralada (mountain range) come from serra, derived from the Latin word serra, the name given to the instrument for sawing.
The origin of Montserrat
If we talk about a long time ago, specifically about 50 million years, we will reach the beginning of the origin of Montserrat.
In its beginnings, it did not exist as such, and it was a great marine gulf with a warm and rainy climate, where many rivers flowed from a Catalan-Balearic massif. In their course these rivers carried pebbles (stones rounded by the flow of the river), which were combined with more pasty materials resulting in the formation of a mass.
Later, when the Catalan-Balearic massif disappeared, the land surrounding the great gulf was faced with a great geological cataclysm. As a result, this setback caused reliefs to emerge from the bottom of the sea and strange shapes. The emerged mass was exposed to the different terrestrial phenomena, such as rain, wind or frost, which with the passage of time were forging the aspect that it currently presents.
If you want to see this geological jewel in its full magnitude, the best way is to fly over the mountain with our Montserrat helicopter Tour!