Montserrat, Poblet and Santes Creus monasteries, Spain

Abbey of Montserrat - strange stone cliffs, ruined hermitages, a monastery and crowds of tourists describe this sacred place called the Montserrat Monastery. Translated, its name means "jagged mountain" and the most dramatic access to it is by lift, which reaches below the monastery after exciting incitement with shouts on the vertical side of the mountain.
For thousands of years, pilgrims have not been afraid of the rocky ridges and are purposefully heading to the holiest place in all of Catalonia - namely the Benedictine monastery and caves of Montserrat. 
Built in 1025 to immortalize the visions of the Virgin Mary, today the monastery of Montserrat houses a community of 80 monks and pilgrims coming to honor La Moreneta (the Black Virgin) - a romantic 12th-century wooden sculptor of the Virgin Mary with baby Jesus, who according to legend is a creation of St. Luke, miraculously found in Santa Cova in 880. The Black Maiden has been the official patron saint of Catalonia since 1881.
The Poblet Monastery is a Cistercian abbey in Catalonia, one of the largest in Spain, so named because of the surrounding poplar forest. This peaceful, harmonious monastery was built in 1151 with a 12th-century church in its center. This rugged, majestic monastery, which is a fortified royal residence and contains the pantheon of kings of Catalonia and Aragon, is an impressive sight. A Gothic gallery surrounding a beautiful pavilion with a fountain leads to the Romanesque church with an exceptional alabaster altarpiece sculpted by Damian Forment in 1527 and exquisite 14th-century royal tombs. The end of the tour of the monastery is the wine cellar - a kind of proof of the activities of the Cistercian monks, who led to a boom in the heyday of the economy in the Middle Ages.
After Montserrat, which is the most visited, Poblet, which is the most beautiful, in Eastern Catalonia there is another treasure that stands out among the many monasteries and this is Santes Creus - the most enlightening monastery in the area. It was founded shortly after the Poblet Monastery by French monks from Toulouse, but today it is no longer a functioning monastery. The Puritan church with "old" and "new" galleries, beautifully carved capitals in the Grand Claustro and a spacious bedroom, which is now the scene of many summer concerts, remained to receive visitors.