Category: Andorra

We had packed up François, and I stuck my head in to tell Ton I was going to disconnect the electricity when she said I read a couple of articles this morning and there are some things to do here. So ten minutes before hitting the road out of Andorra we decided to head into town instead.

Armed with some ideas from a travel blog our initial destination was a street the blogger had labeled as the Champs Elyse of Andorra. It turns out that it is the main shopping street of Andorra, and is lined with high end shops, but surprisingly few restaurants. It had Paris beat for mountains in the background, but the blogger had a pretty vivid imagination to see a resemblance to one of the most famous streets in the world.

Our next stop was to see a statue that Salvador Dali donated to Andorra. It was located next to the Riu Valira which is the river that runs thru town. As soon as you see the sculpture you know it is a Dali.

To tell the truth we spent most of our time today in a LeClerc Hypermarket. This one was different than any we had been in in France, as about 20% of the stock was liquor. Tax free liquor is one of the biggest attractions in Andorra, and this LeClerc was prepared to provide the attraction.

We left the LeClerc with some chocolate souvenirs from Andorra for friends at home. The weather was nearly perfect, and the town was not overcrowded so in the end we were satisfied with our decision to stay on and give Andorra a chance.

We did watch a video in the tourist information center highlighting the extensive mountain trail system in Andorra. Unfortunately for us those days are coming to a close, but if it is your thing I think there is another side of Andorra that we did not experience.

We began what is going to be a long trek north back to the Netherlands with a short in distance drive to Andorra, a new country for us. Andorra is one of the mini-countries in Europe with a population of about 87,000. Like Monaco it is a principality though it has two heads of state, the President of France and the Bishop of Urgell in Catalonia, it is a long story.

The drive was relatively short in distance, but took a little over 3 hours to cover as it was almost all two lane roads instead of the Autovias we have been spoiled with on this trip. the final hour was on a mountainous but well built and maintained road. Our trip was extended a bit because there were three semis delivering large concrete blocks to Andorra and they were frequently down to about 50 kph on the steep grades, by the end there was quite a parade of impatient drivers behind them.

Andorra is not in Schengen so we were expecting a border crossing and had our documents ready, but when we arrived at the border the Spanish side was unmanned, and the Andorran side was manned but they were not checking every vehicle or any vehicle as near as we could tell, so in the end the documents went unused.

What Andorra is really known for is cheap fuel and no sales tax shopping. As soon as you cross the border there are about 8 fuel stations in the first 5 kilometers and two big malls. We took advantage of the fuel to get our second cheapest fuel of the trip at €1.17, another good day for the budget.

We arrived at our campground in the capital of Andorra which is a small town packed into a narrow valley. The mountains above the town are quite striking, but the town didn’t make much of an impression on us. Ton wisely sent me out to take a look at the town, and after a 45 minute trek I returned to tell her that it may be the least charming town I have seen in Europe. She laughed and said that is what she had read. So we settled in to plan our next stop for tomorrow, and a nice home cooked dinner.