South of Andorra

Approaching Andorra from Spain we encountered some lovely weather. The rain in Spain does not fall mainly on the plain.

Andorra is one of the pocket-handkerchief sovereign states of Europe, nestling in the mountains between Spain and France. It may have a small surface area when drawn on a map, but the actual surface area is much bigger because most of the land surface comprises steep slopes. We had no fixed plans, and stopped at what we thought might be a suitable town, Ordino, because it looked like there may be some nice walks in the mountains nearby (ie very WiGgLy road with lots of hairpins up to a place with lakes and tracks marked on OSM). The main industry of Andorra seems to be tourism – holiday hotels and apartments filled the valleys and the mountains had lots of ski areas. Luckily we were there in the off-season so it was comparatively peaceful.

castellers of Andorra

After dumping bags at an apartment-hotel we headed off to the local supermarket to get food for dinner and noticed a crowd in the village square. The supermarket was rather small, with scant supplies of carnivory so I popped outside to see if I could find a larger one using open street maps on my phone, and realised why there was a crowd – we’d managed to spike the day and time of the first ‘Castellers d’Andorra’ competition they had ever had there. The castellers build fantastic human pyramids. As you can imagine, we dumped shopping and rushed back for cameras. We spent the next hour being entertained by castellers of various nationalities competing, I suspect, for fun and honour. There was lots of merriment, and thankfully the ambulance crew who were stationed at the edge of the square were not needed.

Lakes in NW Andorra

Next morning we headed up the wiggly road and had a pleasant walk round some lakes through some lovely alpine scenery. Lots of other walkers and fishermen were also enjoying the area. We could have spent much longer there, but we had a vague schedule to keep, so after lunch

Fisherman – lakes in NW Andorra

we jumped back in the car and on our way. Andorra will definitely be on our ‘Places to revisit‘ list.

As usual there are more photos in a gallery: https://goo.gl/photos/wNbrq4DFHnGQYcoC6