Montserrat (mountain) which are visible from a great distance. The mountain is composed of strikingly pink conglomerate, a form of sedimentary rock. Montserrat was designated as a National Park in 1987. In 1493, Christopher Columbus named the Caribbean island of Montserrat "Santa Maria de Montserrate", after the "Virgin of Montserrat". The Benedictine Abbey can be reached by road, by the Aeri de Montserrat cable car, or by the Montserrat Rack Railway. The lower stations of both the rack railway and the cable car can be reached by Ferrocarrils de la Generalitat de Catalunya train from Barcelona's Plaça d'Espanya station. From the abbey,
Llibre Vermell de Montserrat songs it contains. The monastery holds the shrine of the Virgin of Montserrat, which was a major site of pilgrimage during the time it was compiled. The purpose of the compilation is made clear by its anonymous compiler himself: The songs, therefore, were written for the pilgrims to have something appropriately "chaste and pious" to sing and dance to (round-dance). The songs are in Catalan, in Occitan and in Latin. While the collection was written near the end of the 14th century, much of the music in the collection appears from its style to originate earlier; the motet " Imperayritz