Travelling Hopefully - Shoe Shops and Football Shirt Edition

 After three days of walking our tour leader graciously permitted us to have a free day.  He suggested we might like to go for a walk.  The response was somewhat underwhelming.  I for one had plans for my sudden liberation. Having seen some of the countryside I decided to visit Andorra La Vella the capital some twenty odd kilometres down the road.

La Vella sits in the central valley on the only piece of ground wide enough to hold more than two buildings abreast at roughly the same elevation.  There is an old town of course perched on the top of a small hill.  This being Andorra the small hill is perched directly below a large mountain.  The rest of the town seems to consist of duty free stores and designer shops mostly selling shoes.  You could be forgiven for assuming footwear was the only clothing Andorrans possessed.

I had little interest in duty free stores and none at all in designer footwear but I did want to get an Andorra football shirt and take a look around the old town.  Collectively this can be achieved in about twenty minutes, it will surprise no one who knows me that I somehow managed to take several hours to achieve these modest goals.

In fairness the old town was accomplished fairly easily.  I visited the Basilica of Sant Esteve and took a quick tour of the large (for early Andorra) house which was the centre of government until quite recently.  The government now operates out of a newer but not much larger building just across the square.  Apart from a handful of the obligatory narrow streets and elderly buildings that’s pretty much it for the old town.

The football shirt proved somewhat more problematic.  Andorra FC has a shop right next to the national stadium and I confidently made my way to said stadium to make my purchase.  I arrived at what I’m pretty sure was the shop to find it full of workmen doing renovations and no clothing of any kind on display.  Somewhat at a loss I wandered the rain drenched streets (did I mention it was raining?) and wondered what to do next.

Eventually I came up with a bright idea. A long street reached from the old town the length of La Vella and spilling into the next village which La Vella in a case of urban sprawl in miniature has largely enveloped.  This street and various associated malls etc was lined with shops purely directed at selling stuff to tourists.  I can say the preceding with confidence as there simply aren’t enough people in Andorra to provide a market to keep them all running.  Surely amongst these temples of retail there would be a souvenir shop selling football shirts.

Two and a half hours later having walked the length of La Vella I began to doubt my strategy.  Apparently if I didn’t want designer shoes or three quarters of a tonne of cigarettes (and a giant toblerone) then the city had nothing for me except a statue by Salvador Dali standing in the middle of a shopping mall.  I did take a photo because I felt obliged to have something to show for the day.  Finally almost weeping in despair I ventured into a large sporting goods outlet (shoes prominently on display) and found my target hiding behind a shoe display.

Covered in glory (and rain) I repaired to a local spa where a pleasant young woman rubbed bamboo over me.  For some reason I paid for this experience.  Feeling the day couldn’t get any better I decided to catch the next bus back to the hotel.

A modest but not unimpressive basilica