Montserrat is situated about 60 km (40 miles) northwest of Barcelona city. It takes an hour or so to get to Montserrat by road and about an hour by train also. If you are driving, add 20 minutes to your journey up the mountain route from the base. There is ample parking available near the Monastery and along the mountain route. If you take the train or the bus, you need to transfer to the cable car or the rack railway at the bottom of the mountain to take you to the Monastery. The cable car ride is 5 minutes and the rack railway takes 15 minutes. In sum, it takes about 1.5 hours to get to Montserrat from Barcelona.