A total of 2,176,442 people visited the monastic complex of Montserrat during 2023, which represents an increase of 581,655 (36%) compared to 2022 and triple the number recorded in the first year of the covid pandemic, 2020. The data provided by the Patronat de la Muntanya de Montserrat indicates that recovery began in 2021 by receiving 919,520 visitors and 1,594,787 in 2022.
But it is worth remembering that before covid, in 2019, Montserrat registered the record number of 2,743,269 people. Xavier Aparicio, manager of the Patronat de la Muntanya de Montserrat, explains that these results arise from the sum of visitors who have accessed the monastery by bus or private vehicle, which represents 64% of the total, and those who have used other vehicles. means of transport, such as the Cremallera train (24%) and the Aeri funicular (12%).
Statistics indicate that the months with the greatest influx were October, with 258,630 arrivals; September (227,259) and May (220,767) and those with the least, February and January, with 107,054 and 115,697, respectively.
Aparicio emphasizes that these figures refer to the people who stay in the monastic enclosure and in the surrounding area since the number of those who access the mountain in 2023 still needs to be analyzed, based on the passengers of the Sant Joan and Sant Joan funiculars. of the Santa Cova, in addition to the results of the counters arranged on various trails.
The manager of the board regrets that there are many tourists or locals who “in street clothes and shoes and without any preparation” enter Montserrat. In this sense, it refers to the rescue that this weekend required the activation of nine teams of the Generalitat Firefighters, among which three members of the Grup d'Actuacions Especials (GRAE) to come to the aid of a woman who had fractured leg. In the video released by Bombers you can see how eight people lower the injured woman on a stretcher from the Pla dels Escurçons area to the monastery parking lot. Aparicio recalls that, in recent years, firefighters have carried out up to 90 rescues annually in Montserrat, between searching for people lost in the mountains and rescues.
