Silly After Action Report - Down by the River

 Major Felix von der Füll winced as leutnant Meinschaft stamped to attention in front of him.  Meinschaft probably saluted as well but von der Füll was too busy wiping mud out of his eyes to notice.

"Get your men ready Meinschaft, we're launching an attack towards the river."

Meinschaft looked a little surprised, "Isn't this the river?"  His confusion was understandable, in this season in Russia the border between water and land could best be described as fluid.

"This isn't the river," replied von der Füll.  "The river is over there behind all of those Russians in foxholes.  What you are standing on is solid ground.  For given definitions of both 'solid' and 'ground' of course.  Have you deployed your flamethrower team?"

An evil grin split Meinschafts face, "Yes herr Major, I've given it to the most irritating men under my command.  Let's see how they like charging into battle with several litres of flammable liquid on their backs."

"Very good, all right return to your position, oh and take this satchel with you when you do?"

"What's in it?"

"Several kilograms of high explosives which I am entrusting to you due to my high regard for your leadership abilities and personality."

I returned from holidays eager to plunge into to battle.  Instead I plunged into a series of defeats but because my blog wont write itself (although I'm looking very closely at ChatGPT) I hereby present one of the less humiliating ones for your delectation.  I selected J202 - Down by the River because it looked interesting, presenting two different battles in one.  Here I command two forces of Germans attacking both sides of a river defended by two groups of Soviets.  The river is flooded and can't be crossed so apart from a certain amount of long range fire two separate battles rage simultaneously.  My objective is to get 10 VPs worth of troops adjacent to river hexes.  Each squad is worth 1 VP and AFVs are worth two.  There must be two VP worth of troops on each side of the river so both attacks have to be successful.

On the west (top) side of the river I have the brave landsers of the 8th light infantry division; nine first line squads and two elite led by three officers including a 9-1 and equipped with three lmgs, a dismantled mmg plus a DC and a flamethrower.  They are supported by a pair of early model StuGIIIG assault guns.  On the other side of the river is a collection of war crimes defendants dignified if that's the correct word (it isn't) by the title of SS Totenkopf panzer division.  Despite the name this is an all infantry force with eight and a half elite SS squads, three officers including a fearsome 9-2 and equipped with a pair of lmgs, a dismantled hmg and for some reason a dismantled 50mm mortar.  A cute little twist is that both sides have a sniper counter on each side of the river and randomly select which side of the river is affected by any sniper activation.

The meat in this wehrmacht sandwich is Dave's defenders.  Facing the army troops are ten first line squads (eight 447s and two 527s) an elite halfsquad and a pair of officers.  They have a medium machine gun and two lmgs plus an antitank rifle and six concealment counters.  They also have a 45mm antitank gun.  Facing the SS are nine first line squads (six 447s and three 527s), three officers including a 9-0 commissar, two lmgs, a heavy machine gun and a 50mm mortar of their own.  They also have eighteen factors of land mines and three wire hexes.  A dozen concealment counters are evenly distributed between both forces.  All Soviet forces in suitable terrain can set up in foxholes.

At start set up

With two forces to command that meant I had to come up with two plans, a struggle for someone who rarely manages to achieve one with any great efficiency.  For my top force I set up heavily weighted to the right intending to push through the woods, hopefully overunning his troops enroute and taking an at least partially sheltered route towards the river.  My StuGs would motor down the road and hopefully tiptoe through the trees to assist them.  A smaller force would plunge through the woods and hopefully attract the attention of his defenders in the centre.  I was paranoid about his 45mm atg which could wreck my StuGs whose utility in my eyes was more for their VP value than any support they might give to my hard pressed infantry.

At the bottom I set up my SS to try and cross the road and flank his forces through the forest.  A glance at the map will show that the Dave has pretty my ignored the left side of the board but I imagined that he would have laced the area with mines and wire so I ignored it in favour of a push through the middle.

End of German turn 1

My top force advanced through the forest setting up for an attack next turn.  A half squad headed to the left to occupy the attention of the two units Dave had over there.  My StuGs lined up to support the infantry.  In the bottom I hit the edge of Dave's force and almost broke through.  A dummy stack and a squad being all the force he had to oppose me.  The forest stretched out in front of me, beckoning me towards the river.

Of course it wasn't that easy, Dave raced some squads across and into the forest (I kept a close eye on the hexes they moved through to ensure there were no minefields).  On the other side of the river he largely kept his concealment and waited for me to move.  I did manage to break one of his forward squads on the right.  In my next turn I followed this up by moving into his forward position in force wiping out a hapless broken halfsquad and positioning themselves for the next push.  Down the bottom I pushed through the forest to make contact with the troops Dave had just brought up.  He also revealed his hmg guided by a 9-1 in a houe by the river bank.  Firing across the river Dave achieved a rate tear on a series of 2-1 shots which broke one of my top squads moving forward and served warning that a lot of the ground I had hoped was reasonably clear was anything but.

End German turn 2. Things are going ok but the hmg was a nasty shock

In his turn Dave broke a SS squad down (because of course 8 morale troops can't handle a NMC even when guided by a 9-2).  He also jumped into CC with a CX halfsquad which was doing fire drawing duties at the front of my force.  On the positive side long range fire on my part broke a squad in a foxhole thus cutting down the amount of shooting my troops would have to face in the next turn.

In my next turn I started to press forward and casualties began to mount.  Fortunately Dave malfed his mmg and broke it while attempting to repair it but his hmg swept an impressive amount of the battlefield and left a scattering of pinned and broken units in its wake.  On the plus side his atg proved rather disappointing.  I pushed a StuG through a narrow gap in the trees to support my troops on the right.  Dave unveiled his gun and took not one but two shots at the StuG's side.  He gained a hit each time and each time the shell bounced off the StuG's not terribly impressive side armour.  The gun would not fire again.

End of German turn 3, could be worse

 

Down on the bottom board I resolved the CC in my favour and moved up towards his recently arrived woods defenders.  I was starting to get concerned about time particularly as I could see more squads sliding sideways to take up defensive positions among the trees.  Still I was reasonably satisfied.  The trend on both sides of the river was generally forward and casualties had been acceptable to date.  The situation was improved when in his next turn I broke the crew of his 45mm and removed a major threat to my armour.

My turn four was probably the high point of my game.  Up the top my burgeoning forces on the right broke a pair of squads that made up the bulk of his defenders in last patch of woods before the river and I managed to push into the woods and an adjacent building.  A single squad remained to defend the woods and I had troops lining up to take it on.  Things looked so good that I sent the supporting StuG over to the centre to help out there.  I rolled it into bypass in a defenders hex and moved a squad in to CC.  If nothing else the defending squad would not be shooting out of its hex next turn.  Down the bottom I broke all but one of the defenders immediately in front of me and moved three squads into CC with the survivor.  Sadly that shifty character knocking on my door was reality.

End of German turn 4 - definitely the high point

Having been refused entry reality managed to sneak in through an open window in the next turn.  Down the bottom my three squad CC force proved incapable of dealing with a single squads worth of opponents.  That CC would rage for three turns locking up a good third of my force and consequently weakening my attack to the point of impotence.  Up the top in the little patch of woods that were all that stood between my troops and the river Dave's 7-0 managed to rally two squads back from DM and they proceeded to shoot the troops that I had got into the woods to pieces.  Suddenly I was back in the same position I was in two turns ago with fewer troops and less time.  Those two events, the CC and the rally pretty much ended my hopes but in case there was any doubt Dave's sniper shot dead the 9-1 who was guiding my troops on the top board and both the squads with him failed their LLMC.  That was an absolute killer.  I no longer had a coherent force on the top board just a scattering of leaderless squads.  Not even the fact that one of my StuGs vapourised a Soviet squad and lmg position with a critical hit changed that grim equation.

I made a despairing final charge which was simply a hope that the dicebot might shower me with love.  I was certainly showered with something.  The high point was when a DC toting 8-0 took a morale check.  I rolled snake eyes, went berserk and was incapable of placing the DC.  Instead I charged into a 4-1 CC and was promptly dispatched.  I conceded with tears in my eyes.  At least I assumed they were tears, I was a little ill in this session and that might have been brain fluid leaking out my ears.

One noteworthy thing about this scenario was the absolute failure of all our wonder weapons.  Dave's atg did absolutely nothing and his atr broke early in the game and never came back.  My flamethrower malfed on its first shot and my DC wound up lying on its owners blood drenched body.  Despite the outcome I genuinely enjoyed this game and would happily play it again as either side.  Many thanks to Dave for yet another defeat.

The end, with the exception of a single StuG I'm nowhere near the river

 

Major von der Füll spat out a mouthful of mud and looked around.  All he could see was German uniformed figures sinking slowly into the "solid" ground.  The last he had seen of leutnant Meinschaft he had been running screaming into a building attempting to beat some of the defenders about the head with a satchel of explosives.  A Soviet soldier in mud spattered valenki looked down at him.

"Is this the river?" asked von der Füll in his best Russian.

"Sorry, that's a few hundred metres away.  You're on solid ground."

Von der Füll regarded his sodden uniform for a moment.

"Define solid."

"You sink more slowly."

A Restful Weekend

 I peered at the face on the screen in some confusion.

"Excuse me, do I know you?"

"I'm your Blue Mountains correspondent," replied the other with some asperity.

I cast my mind back, a vague trickle of memory pattered over the jagged rocks of my mind.

"Oh yes, that's right.  Blue Mountains correspondent.  Yeah."  A little more seemed to be required so I followed up with an incisive question.

"Um so, how are things going up there?"

"Great," she responded with an enthusiasm so forced that I would have been suspicious if I hadn't been desperately trying to remember her name.

"What can I do for you?" as interrogations go this was rather poor but I was still trying to regain my equilibrium.

"Would you like to come up and visit for a couple of days?  It's a beautiful time in the Mountains and we'd love to see you again."

Faced with such an outright lie I finally focussed my attention.

"Really?"

She nodded with a smile normally described as brittle but which in my view had progressed to "splintered".

"No ulterior motive at all?"

The smile slipped or rather disintegrated and she finally broke down and admitted that she and her husband were currently caring for their two grand children under the age of four while the parents of said infants were rather selfishly enjoying a honeymoon.  Despite this revelation for some reason I agreed to make the journey to the Blue Mountains and give them another mouth to feed.

The word being the absentee stepfather of the deed it was only a few days later that I found myself on a train heading towards an idyllic weekend in the Blue Mountains with old friends.  I arrived and was handed a baby which promptly screamed at me.  To be fair that was my reaction as well.  Once both of us had been calmed down and greetings exchanged I offloaded the terrified two year old while the elder child politely ignored my existence and ran around the house.  I handed over the bottle of wine I traditionally bring to make a pretence of contributing something to the proceedings and my correspondent seized it with a desperation that made me seriously doubt if I would be drinking anything other than cordial tonight.

Once the children had been strapped into a soundproof room for the night we discussed the next days plans.  I was rather surprised to learn there were next days plans.

"We'll go to a park by the lake," announced my correspondent.

"I'm not particularly interested in parks," I replied.  My correspondent stared as if she had forgotten my existence.  Then as if I hadn't spoken she continued, 

"The kids want to feed the ducks."

"What to?" I asked.

The next day it turned out the threatened park visit wasn't an alcohol induced fever dream (I had managed to wrestle the wine bottle from my correspondent's frantic grip at some point during the evening) and some time after breakfast I, two small children that I had not the slightest legal responsibility for and my correspondent piled into a car and amid hysterical wailing that reached the heavens set out for the lake.  Said lake had a children's playground on the shore which was sensibly surrounded by the type of fence that adults fondly imagine is childproof.  This seemed like an excellent moment to drop the kids off for fun while I and my correspondent did literally anything else but apparently children's fun has to have adult witnesses.

Once inside the happiness compound I was assigned responsibility for the elder child, a girl of utter fearlessness who liked to run around no matter what might be in her way.  My duties were to keep an eye on her and steer her away if it looked like she was about to run into something that could kill her.  For a children's playground there were actually quite a few things that fitted that description and the little girl cheerfully ran towards all of them in turn.  After I had collapsed gasping on the ground my correspondent relented and asked me to look after the other child, a two year old (I think) whose mobility was somewhat impaired by the fact that he was recovering from a broken leg and he stopped to wail miserably every thirty seconds or so.

Fortunately he liked daisies.  He certainly ate enough of them.  This kept him quiet and my duties were reduced to intervening when rocks got in among the daisies.  He was quite a catholic eater and would happily chow down on the rocks if we let him.  It was imparted to me that letting him was an undesirable situation.  I got covered in drool fishing rocks out of his mouth while I left my correspondent to deal with the older child's penchant for high speed self harm.  Just when I thought we were going to have to put daisies on the endangered species list my correspondent returned and announced that we were going to feed the ducks.  This meant leaving the child protection compound and heading to the lake shore in the company of one child who would probably want to run into the water and another which would try and eat a duck if it got too close.  I was assigned the potential duck eater as the one I should attempt to protect from drowning.

The duck feeding actually went well.  Both children obviously liked hurling bits of bread at ducks and if the number of ducks who turned up was anything to go by so did they.  They say you shouldn't feed bread to ducks but then they say a lot of things and you can't listen to all of them, especially when you have two small children in your charge and drowning them is definitely off the table (I made a discreet enquiry to my correspondent on this subject so I can speak with authority).  Frankly I think the greatest danger the bread posed to the ducks was the sheer weight of it dragging them to the bottom.  It is fair to say that rarely have a small group of ducks been so well fed.  That's before you factor in the fact that I managed to hit a couple of ducks when tossing bread so there were probably one or two concussions as well.

That evening we listened to AC/DC and the Village People ostensibly for the entertainment of the children.  The young boy liked AC/DC so much that he stopped wailing hysterically.  Having heard AC/DC before I felt no obligation to follow his example.  Eventually I was put to bed with a dummy and a warning that if I didn't shut up my parents would be called.

The next day we intended to go to various gardens (the Leura Garden Festival is on) but the younger of the two children expressed his opinion of this suggestion by projectile vomiting over my correspondent and by the time she had washed, changed clothes, washed him, changed his clothes and generally contemplated her life choices it was decided to take them to another park.  This park had no lake but more play equipment that could hurt or possibly maim a fearless young child which who would tackle anything presented to her.  It also had a busy road which the young girl took a delight in running towards just to see how long it would be before her grandfather headed her off.  There were also cockatoos that looked big enough to swoop down and carry off the younger child should he irritate them.

Eventually when the adults were sufficiently exhausted to decide that the children must be tired out I was dropped at the nearest railway station and bid a fond farewell.  My correspondent commented that I should come up again soon.  Then we both laughed, my laugh was edged with hysteria.

Wrapping Things Up

 I had a wedding to go to.  This in itself was a surprise as I have reached the age where most of my friends are already married or licking their wounds after divorces with no intention of going around again.  However I have also reached the age where the children of some of my friends are now getting married and, possibly out of pity, one of these invited me to be a witness to his nuptials.  Out of surprise I accepted and realised that I now needed to acquire a wedding gift for the no doubt deliriously happy couple.  As it so happened I didn't need to acquire a wedding present but I didn't find that out until after I had bought one so they could damn well take it and look grateful.

Once I had successfully purchased an item which the recipients could at least pretend to appreciate without straining credulity too much I ran into the next gift related issue; wrapping.  For some reason gifts need to be wrapped.  I'm not entirely sure why.  Here you are handing something to a person that they have neither requested or done anything to deserve but apparently this isn't enough.  This offering has to be encased in multi coloured paper whose sole reason for existence is to be torn to shreds by human vultures slavering to get their hands on the loot.  Woe betide if you neglect this flimsy little token.  You lay yourself open to accusations of disinterest or laziness.  A tide of criticism from your social group will rush towards you leaving you gasping on a beach like a pilot whale with navigation issues.

Let's be clear, the wrapping does not protect the present, it is usually so thin and flimsy that it needs wrapping itself for its own protection.  The sole reason for the existence of wrapping is to add to the level of environmental devastation inflicted by the present buyer on a long suffering world.  I am also a dreadful present wrapper.  Jagged lines, sometimes ill matching paper and random bits of sticky tape result in a final product that looks like I got halfway through blending a clown before giving up.  This along with a card carefully chosen for its inappropriate nature is then presented to the recipient who mumbles a few words of thanks and rapidly hides it before any children can be traumatised at the sight.

For the present mentioned above I decided to get the store to wrap the thing for me.  This would result in a level of professionalism to the wrapping which would raise serious doubts as to whether I bought the thing at all and hopefully would drop the environmental karma points on the shoulders of the store personnel rather than myself.  Unfortunately I wasn't satisfied with the result.  In fact I was so dissatisfied that I decided to rewrap the thing myself when I got home.  The gift was somewhat bulky so I decided to be prepared.  I entered one of those stores that used to be called newsagents when they sold things that purported to inform us of the news of the day but are now reduced to selling lottery tickets and wrapping paper.  I was desperate to ensure that I bought enough wrapping paper so I bought five metres of the stuff.  I had to wait while they bulldozed a forest especially.  

Once I had assembled all the necessary materials, wrapping paper, scissors, sticky tape (there was a time after I broke a finger when friends and relatives received gifts sealed with surgical tape) I proceeded to not so much wrap as mummify the gift until finally a misshapen lump with odd angles and strange extrusions signaled my success.  Or if it didn't signal my success it signaled the end of my attempts.  Frankly the resultant parcel looked like something that could have come from the mind of HP Lovecraft if he had decided on a career in gift wrapping rather than spectacularly racist horror stories.  

With this wretched thing nestling in a bag hiding its shame from a fearful world I journeyed to the wedding, dumped it on the appropriate table and fled before anyone could associate my name with the hideous lump.  This attempt at anonymity was pointless as a single glance at the gift table would identify the giver although I'm prepared to bet that no one would be able to identify the present beneath.  Which I believe is the sole point of wrapping paper.

Travelling Hopefully - Cow Success and Snake Envy Edition

Of course my trip to Andorra La Vella triumphant though it was served as a mere interruption to the serious business of walking.  For a small country there is a lot of walking that can be done.  Since the country is about eighty percent mountain and twenty percent valley there is always another slope to be climbed and usually another spectacularly scenic valley to descend into when you’re tired of climbing (about twenty seconds in in my case).  In one of those valleys is a Tibetan bridge.  That is its modelled on bridges in Tibet apparently.  It is actually a giant suspension bridge that allows you to cross from one slope to another without the tedium of plodding through the valley below.  

Since the only people likely to come this far are probably quite happy with the valley plodding concept there seems to be little point the bridge.  The previous sentence is actually an understatement.  There is no point to the bridge.  It doesn’t lead to anything and the only thing you can do once you’ve crossed is turn around and come back unless you just want to keep walking until you violate the border of one of Andorra’s neighbours.  The whole thing is a tourist attraction pure and simple.  You have to pay for a ticket to get across as well as a shuttle bus to get you to the bridge in the first place.  Some of our company paid up and dutifully crossed the bridge.  Others like me continued proudly walking on terra firma which is why the bridge venturers got back to the hotel comfortably before us.  Next time I’ll take the bridge.

The final walk (at least it was the final walk for those of us whose knee finally gave out after giving good and faithful service) was a rather special one.  We headed into Sorteny Nature Reserve.  The trip notes gushed over the wildflowers and it wasn’t just flowers.  Marmots, wild boar, chamois and ptarmigans would be just some of the wildlife we didn’t see on the walk.  

Our walk would take us through valley meadows, up through forested slopes, onto somewhat more alpine appearing meadows, across narrow streams and finally end at a tarn or lake where lunch would be enjoyed.  At least that was the agenda if you were sensible.  Those whose last shreds of commonsense had deserted them could continue up to the top of a ridge where excruciating effort and the danger of vertigo would be compensated by 360 degree views over the countryside.  I gazed at the lake and the effort required to reach it and decided I had quite enough views to be going on with.

The lake was beautiful and the views across the valley stupendous and I regretted my decision not to climb the ridge not in the slightest.  I and one other sane person relaxed in the sun by a lake for an hour or so while our comrades struggled first up and then down the ridge.  We smiled smugly on their return and didn’t feel the need to greet them as they staggered in.

While wild animals didn’t exactly hurl themselves in front of my camera I was greatly pleased to encounter a meadow occupied by a number of rather handsome cows.  The clanging of their cowbells almost drowned out the shrill chirrups of the marmots who attempted to compensate for being invisible by making enough racket to wake the dead.  I was thoroughly satisfied with the presence of cows until I learned that a fellow walker had encountered and photographed an adder which the rest of us had missed.  I nearly wept with envy at the photographs.  Of course I could have been happy for my companion’s success and complimented him on some quite impressive photos.  There are many things I could have done in my life.

Also there was a report of bears.  We didn’t expect to see any but it certainly added a little urgency to the return journey.

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 

Travelling Hopefully - Up Hill and Down Dale Edition

The time came more quickly than I hoped.  The next day after breakfast we gathered in sensible shoes and various other walking accoutrements and with varying degrees of enthusiasm set off for the bus stop.  The bus took us part way down the valley before abandoning us by the side of the road.  Our guide pointed at a narrow path clinging to the side of the hill that loomed over the road and indicated we should proceed.

I reminded myself that I had chosen this holiday and set forth without complaint.  A portion of that previous sentence is almost certainly a lie.  The up went on for quite a way, was replaced by down before circling back to up again.  Our guide assured us that this was simply an introductory walk and we wouldn’t always be gazing down onto the main road.  My only problem with the main road was that it seemed a long way down and we needed to get back there at some stage.

Our walk skirted the central valley which is the most built up area in Andorra largely because it’s the only place with a certain amount of semi flat land.  Still we managed to pass some pleasant villages and a small Romanesque church which received more photographic attention than it probably deserved.

We eventually plodded back to our hotel which was situated in the village of Soldeu which essentially caters for the ski season and as such appeared to be largely closed.  Apparently walking in the Summer is a tourist activity the Andorrans haven’t quite figured out.

The next day we did our first “proper” walk which took us around some of the more rural and picturesque parts of Andorra which, central valley not withstanding, is most of it.  There was climbing, descending and more climbing plus scenery.  For a small country Andorra is vastly overburdened with scenery.  The Pyrenees rise all around and crammed onto the slopes are forests, meadows, villages, the occasional tobacco field and cranes.

Yes cranes, Andorra seems to be largely under construction as builders attempt to insert hotels, apartments and other structures onto land that appears close to vertical.  Still it is very easy to forget that as you walk through a dripping forest, pass by a mountain stream and debouch into an unexpected meadow.  I got quite obsessed with the possibility of seeing cows, not normally an animal that excites my interest except in a restaurant, but for the first few days cows were noticeable by their absence (except in restaurants).

We visited Meritxell the religious centre of Andorra where  at a time sufficiently far removed from today as to make effective fact checking difficult villagers found a wooden statue of the Virgin and Child.  After a couple of false starts a church was built on the site to house the statue and Meritxell became the place to be religiously speaking in Andorra.  Tragically both church and statue were burnt to the ground in a fire a couple of decades ago (you can fact check that if you want).  A handsome new church has been built on the site but the statue is gone and the people of Andorra are bereft, apparently.

New church at Meritxell but no statue 

Travelling Hopefully - Arriving in Andorra

 A taxi having spat me efficiently onto the pavement at Barcelona airport I fled for the air conditioned interior as swiftly as my baggage would allow.  Here in the arrival section I would, if all went well, meet my guide and presumably fellow travellers for my walking tour of Andorra.

A few questions obviously need to be addressed first.  Let me deal with them now.

You booked a walking tour?  Yes

Really?  Yes

It wasn’t a mistake?  No

Sorry to clarify, you booked a walking tour?  Yes

Why?  It was the only tour that would take me to Andorra.

In my defence when I booked the tour I had been doing a fair bit of bush walking and I thought that further preparations along those lines would at least ensure that the experience didn’t kill me.  I was not expecting that an excruciating knee pain would be turn out to indicate that I had worn out all the cartilage in one knee.  Since this diagnosis turned up a fortnight before I was due to fly out emergency measures were required.  A compliant specialist gave me a cortisone injection and a prescription for some heavy duty anti inflammatories that I hope I don’t need.

With a frantic patch job holding my knee together (or at least masking the symptoms) I hopped on a bus which pointed itself at the Pyrenees.  Leaving the parched lands of Barcelona behind we headed into the lumpier bit of Spain.  Things got greener and considerably more vertical as we approached our destination.

Andorra is one of those anomalies of history that survives because nobody is quite prepared to do anything about it.  Back in the Middle Ages the place was ruled jointly by the Bishop of Urgell (Spanish) and the Counts of Foix (French) which made a certain amount of sense as Andorra was (and is) neatly sandwiched between Spain and France.  The rights of the Counts of Foix eventually wound up with their boss, the King of France and when the French king had an unfortunate encounter with a guillotine his rights were taken over by the President of France.  Thus the official rulers of Andorra are the Bishop of Urgell and the President of France.

This hasn’t really bothered the people of Andorra too much as they had three of the most certain guarantees of independence; they were poor, remote and had nothing anybody wanted.  Invading Andorra would not have passed any cost benefit analysis for either Spain or France and technically they already ruled it.

In the nineteen nineties they promulgated a constitution which politely invited both the Bishop of Urgell and the President of France to take less interest in the place from now on.  It is likely both these worthies had to be reminded where the place was.  Now Andorra has a parliament and the trappings of democracy although apparently the real power is still held by the six or seven local families who have always exercised real power here.

Andorra is essentially a large valley with a number of smaller valleys running into it.  As such flat ground has always been at a premium and the Andorrans have grown very adept at building on the sides of mountains.  You may have seen terraced agriculture in Vietnam and elsewhere, in Andorra they have terraced architecture.  Quite a bit of the country is built overlooking the rest of the country.

Into this land of mountains, valleys and terrible internet service came a bus load of eager walkers somewhat to the surprise of the Andorrans whose normal connection with tourists is a ski season and selling them duty free goods.  Andorra isn’t actually part of the EU and a daily stream of shoppers from both France and Spain turn up to take advantage of the lower prices.  Particularly in cigarettes, tobacco is and has always been Andorra’s only cash crop only now instead of smuggling it across the border their customers come to the them.

We are staying in the village of Soldeu which is essentially a ski resort which means in September it is almost deserted and most things are closed.  The scenery however is spectacular.  It’s difficult not to be in Andorra where you can touch a mountain simply by reaching out your arm.  Having bedded down in a large warm room I went to bed troubled only by the fact that the threatened walking started the next day.