Peak performance
We're all lightly crammed into the bright yellow cable car which takes passengers up to Montserrat. The official chap accompanying us rather worryingly opens the roof and fiddles about with a spanner before we set off
Peter Edgerton
Friday, 10 October 2025, 10:24
A collective "ooooh!" rises and falls like a butterfly as we pass within inches of the mountain rock immediately to our right and glide back to base. We're all lightly crammed into the bright yellow cable car which takes passengers up to Montserrat, the multi-peaked mountain range situated about 45km north-west of Barcelona. The official chap accompanying us - who, rather worryingly, opens the roof and fiddles about with a spanner before we set off - looks non-plussed.
He's seen it all before, many times. I, on the other hand, am quite taken with the melodic sound of the twenty-or-so Japanese tourists who are our companions for the trip and I wonder momentarily if each nation has a stereotypical reaction to coming so close to a mountain ledge at such a fair lick.
"Way to go!" and "Awesome!" would surely be the North American cries, possibly accompanied by a few unsolicited whoops for good measure, while the British would almost certainly plump for a classic raised eyebrow and popping a piece of untouched sponge cake back into their pocket. Germans might, I'd like to think, offer a hearty, if nervous, laugh while the Italians and the Spanish wouldn't notice anything happening at all because they'd still be talking in detail about what they'd just eaten for lunch. Meanwhile, teenagers of every nationality would simply shrug their shoulders and mutter the equivalent of 'whatever' in their mother tongue.
I was actually tempted to ask the man with the spanner what really happens in some or all of these cases but he looked like he'd got his mind on higher things - like the cheese and tomato sandwich his wife had made for him that morning, for example. Anyway, amid all the available options, I'm pleased that we were blessed with the Japanese butterfly sigh. It sounded quite delightful.
Montserrat itself is well worth a visit, although the boys' choral performance we were looking forward to attending at the monastery was cancelled because they were 'away singing elsewhere' according to the sign. In further bad luck news, the rack railway which takes you up to the very top of the mountain employing a pinion system for the steep inclines was closed for repair after some heavy rainfall. One can only imagine the heavenly sounds of the Japanese on that particular journey but they'll have to wait until next time.
Still, there are plenty of bracing walks to be undertaken and spectacular views to be witnessed. Sturdy shoes are a must.
Later, as we headed homewards in the car, I attempted to compute the enormity of moving amid mountain peaks that are more than fifty million years old but my eyes began to swivel in their sockets so I gave up, opting instead to tuck into the piece of untouched sponge cake I'd popped into my pocket earlier in the day.
