Andorra 2023

Days In A Small Country: Exploring Andorra

Andorra is the world’s 16th smallest country by area, and the 11th smallest by population, with only just over 75,000 residents in the whole principality. Such is the mountainous terrain of its 180 square miles that while only 1.7% of its surface is arable, there are 350 kilometres worth of ski runs. No prizes for guessing what is the biggest contributor to Andorra’s GDP then.

One of the reasons we were looking forward to Andorra is that we don’t know much about it. OK, so we know that it’s one of Europe’s smallest countries, that it’s a mountain country high up in the Pyrenees with plenty of winter ski resorts, we know it’s the only country in the world which has Catalan as its mother tongue. But what will it really be like?

Will it be half French, half Spanish? Is it true that its tax haven status means that certain luxury goods are cheaper? How will it feel to be in a tiny country which has the euro as its currency, isn’t in the EU and yet is landlocked by it? And a country from which news stories are so rare that we don’t even know its political leaning?

So we enter this little piece of largely unknown territory after a train back to Barcelona followed by a 3-hour bus journey through ever more spectacular scenery – the deeper we get into the Pyrenees the more excited we become. Everything is dramatic as well as beautiful.

The Andorra police board the bus for passport checks and we’re through, into the capital city of Andorra La Vella, Europe’s highest capital city, which fills the bottom of the steep Y-shaped gorge which for all intents and purposes constitutes the whole extent of the country. Over the days of our stay here, we rarely stop marvelling at Andorra: it’s not quite like anywhere else, really. 

Here is a place bursting with floral displays, flower tubs and hanging baskets, where bridges have trailing plants which dangle over the river. A place where there is obviously wealth and investment, brand new sparkling buildings standing shoulder to shoulder with the older mountain dwellings and an ancient parliament building. A place where the spa which uses water from natural springs looks like a half-size version of London’s Shard, where the mountain rivers have been directed through town not in a way to conceal them but rather to make them a feature of Andorra’s splendour.

In fact, just about everything has been made attractive – modern art sculptures decorate the streets and even the road bridges have been designed as pieces of art. New buildings are often large but tend to be stylish and modern; soaring like glazed pinnacles towards the sky, older places have been tastefully renovated, some of the newer buildings are finished in the same natural stone as their older neighbours, done so well that it’s hard to tell which is which. And everything – everything – is immaculately clean. 

All this is squeezed into the narrow valley between the colossal mountains: Andorra La Vella is a long and thin town snaking along the route of the river, meaning that wherever we stand, the high peaks of the Pyrenees are visible way above us. And this is just the town itself – the country’s villages sit tantalisingly on mountain ledges hundreds of metres above the capital, again visible from everywhere. Andorra, despite its tiny size, just cries out to be fully explored.

So, what about the shops of the capital. Is it a haven for cheap quality goods? Well, the number of high end perfume shops per square mile is ridiculous – walking down the main street is a bit like strolling through the World’s largest airport duty free. The streets smell of Chanel and Armani. As for electronic goods, reputed to be at low cost here…well, Michaela has replaced her kaput camera with an upgraded model which, together with new camera case and super fast memory card, comes in at around £100 cheaper than the best deal she could find on line. It’s almost worth coming out to Andorra just to upgrade your gadgets.

We don’t think we’d describe Andorra La Vella as quaint or charming, nor as spectacular exactly, but there’s something about it which leaves you feeling that somebody somewhere really knows what they are doing and is making a bloody good job of it. And they obviously haven’t stopped yet: tower cranes are everywhere in Andorra, there is some serious development in progress here.

Following the river on foot upstream to the neighbouring village of Escaldes-Engordany, we stumble on a roadside spring which spurts out its waters at a whacking 70 degrees. We know this because there’s a sign that tells us, of course there is, Andorra is that kind of place: efficient, businesslike, nothing left to chance.

In keeping with such things, the bus service is impeccable: prompt, punctual, clean. We take the L2 bus (on time, no dramas) to Encamp, the bottom end of the very lengthy cable car ride to a Grandvalira ski resort, 2,448 metres up the mountain. These things must be absolutely rammed in ski season, but today it’s a serene ride up to the top, where the views are stupendous, not just across the mountains but above the clouds too. At the top, the sizeable restaurants with panoramic views give some indication of the huge numbers of visitors which must be here in ski season. Today there’s less than twenty of us.

A second journey out on the bus brings us to Ordino, a picturesque mountain village – even up here everything is immaculate, street cleaners busy keeping up the gleam and even clearing away the dead heads from the hundreds of hanging baskets. It’s noticeably colder in the higher villages, and with feathery mountain rain intermittently drifting through the streets carried by a chill wind, it feels markedly different from everywhere else so far on this journey. 

It’s a wonder the Andorra Government hasn’t found way to regulate such mundane things as the weather, such is the level of straight line efficiency here. We can only imagine the apoplexy if the winter snows don’t come.

Back down in Andorra La Vella, the big Shard-like spa centre is just too tempting and we spend our final afternoon in the country moving from pool to pool in this sizeable complex. Our bodies are pummelled by every type of water jet imaginable, everything from giant jacuzzis to “bubble beds”, and turbulent pools with underwater jets capable of giving a hydrotherapy massage like no other, to parts of the body which have never before received such treatment.

How about wallowing in a pool filled with floating lemons? Or being surrounded by floating grapefruit? An Aztec pool with smooth round pebbles instead of tiled flooring? Going straight from 37 degree water into the harsh chill of 14 degrees in the neighbouring pool is probably the most testing, the body reacts in strange ways to such things, we discover. It’s a fun afternoon which ends with several of our more obscure muscles complaining about what we’ve just put them through – you know, things that hurt when you sit still. Or stand up. Or move.

Last word in Andorra goes to the words. The official language may be Catalan but conversation is a real mishmash of all three tongues – you never know whether you’ll get a “mucho gracias” or a “merci beaucoup” when you pay your bill. It obviously helps because just about everyone seems to be able to switch effortlessly between all three – and then throw in English for good measure. Nothing is difficult here, apart from perhaps prising a smile out of the people, who seem to be only slightly less aloof than the furniture.

And so we move on from Andorra and back into Spain, not quite knowing whether we loved it or whether it was just a little too….perfect, if that makes sense. 

The mountains are behind us for a while now, the next stage of the journey awaits. We don’t expect the scent of Chanel and Armani will greet us at our next destination.