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.
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