Still heading east … to Andorra la Vella

All along the journey, the views around were amazing. This was especially so at the Mirador (Viewpoint) of Creu de Guils de Canto, with views across the Segre valley towards the Cadi mountain range on the far side of Alt Urguell.

The road eventually descended towards La Seu d’Urgell, a small city famous for its bishop being one of the co-princes who are the joint Heads of State of Andorra - our next destination.

The other co-prince will be more familiar than Bishop Josep-Lluís Serrano Pentinat: his name is Emmanuel Macron, the president of France. The bishop and first the French Crown and now the French president have been ex officio the co-princes for Andorra since 1278.

From La Seu d’Urgell, we finally turned north towards Andorra.

As we reached the border, we left both the EU and the Schengen region but without needing to have our passports stamped. This is because, although Andorra is not an EU member or part of Schengen, you can only get here from either France or Spain, which are of course within Schengen, and so Andorra effectively operates as if it was subject to Schengen, save for the duty free limits which apply to purchases made with the principality of Andorra.

We soon arrived in Andorra la Vella (which simply means Andorra the City), the capital of this mountainous and Catalan speaking micro-state. By the early afternoon, it was about 35°C in the shade and even hotter in the sun, despite the city being Europe’s highest capital at some 1,200m.

Trying to stay in the shade and out of the hot sun, we had a wander around the old city, including the Església de Sant Esteve (St Steve’s). The church was built in the 11-12th centuries but has been restored many times and most recently in the 1960s, leaving a relatively modern looking church, with a few historic elements such as the baroque altarpieces.

We didn’t manage to see the Casa de la Vall, the 16th century house which was the seat of the Consell General, the Andorran parliament, from 1702 to 2011. Unfortunately we were barely able to see even the outside of the building as a result of extensive renovation works to the building and the square surrounding it.

We enjoyed a meal in the city before it was time to retrace our steps through the mountains back to the Val d’Aran - but first filling up with diesel at one of the dozen petrol stations on the road to the border. Andorran’s attractive prices (diesel at €1.24 a litre or something like £1.07) are even better than the Spanish prices and so oddly enough, we weren’t alone in doing so!

As dusk and then night fell, the views along the 2.5 hour drive back were just as spectacular as in the daylight. We might not have made the 150km trip to Andorra, except that the rafting took us nearly half way and so we couldn’t resist the opportunity to tick off another country!

At one point on the way back, a fallow deer stag loomed out of the half light in the middle of the road, but he sped away as we approached.

Just before the top of the Bonaigua pass we encountered loads of cattle standing on and around the road but there was just about room to get by. By this point it was dark and the cattle were black shadows until our headlights fell upon them. Perhaps the locals need to invest in marking the cattle with reflective paint!Читать далее