I was in Barcelona to visit Andorra. Andorra was my last microstate in Europe that I had not visited. It’s easy enough to miss; it’s just a dot on the map in between the borders of Spain and France. It doesn’t even sound real; Andorra sounds like a region in a Tolkien book, not current country.
Although the area had been inhabited before this, present day Andorra can effectively chase trace its roots back to the 10th century when Charlamagne give a charter to 5000 people living in the area, primarily soldiers. After that, and for centuries, the tiny state seemed to pass hands from one king or protectorate to another and was occupied by France…I was going to try and summarize it in more detail, but honestly it gets too complicated, so just go and read it a book or a Wikipedia page if you’re interested.
In 1993, Andorra got a constitution and became a voting member of the United Nations. Andorra has a Prime Minister, but also has a co-principality, which means it has two princes (Spin Doctors jokes aside); one prince is the Bishop of Urgell and the other is the President of France. So the president of France in Andorra is kind of a Prince. None of this makes any sense to me either but it is interesting.
The whole country is just under 468 square kilometres and has a population of approximately 88,000 people. Andorra is located in the Pyrenees mountains, which makes it a skiing destination, and its capital is Andorra la Vella. Its biggest industry is tourism, and it also earns money from being a tax haven. I’ve never really heard anything great about Andorra aside from beautiful scenery and low cigar prices, but I hadn’t been there and I wanted to go. This is one of those trips that really did feel like I was checking a box, even though I was excited to see what it was like.
The easiest way to visit Andorra is by driving from Barcelona, as there is no airport. If you can drive, I think it would be lovely to rent a car and make the leisurely drive yourself, but as I don’t know how to drive, this meant organizing a bus tour for the day. I never relish doing this but when it’s the only option, what can you do?
The tours that I booked turned out to be quite good. It was a little larger than I would have liked but the timing was good, and they didn’t chat our ears off or make us follow around an umbrella around in a herd.
Bagà, Spain
We left early in the morning from Barcelona and made our first stop, a small medieval town in the north of Spain, Bagà. Bagà is a little pretty town founded in the 9th century and has a population of slightly over 2,000 people today. They gave us about a 20-minute walk around the town showing us some notable sites, and then we were left free to wander for the rest of the hour. It was picturesque and delightful. I didn’t feel like I needed more time there.
Ax-les-Thermes, France
From there, we crossed the border into France, where we had about an hour in Ax-les-Thermes. The town has been settled since about the 1200s. Today it is famous for having sulphurous Hot Springs with apparent additional properties. The town itself was a population of only about 1200 people. It’s impossibly pretty. I felt like Belle from Beauty and the Beast walking around the charming streets; and, like Belle, I was given curious and suspicious looks as I walked around singsongly greeting people with “Bonjour.”
Arrival in Andorra
From there we drove to Andorra. It was May and in Barcelona it had been quite warm, but as we drove high through the mountains Andorra, there was snow and the temperature dropped considerably. The landscapes were stunning. I love mountains and snow so this is right up my alley. I think it would have been lovely to maybe do some hiking or to stay the night there, but we only had a day trip and so we had to make the most of what we had.
We arrived in Andorra and had a couple of hours of time for exploring. The capital of Andorra is…not great. I really struggled to find pretty picturesque things to photograph. Much of it is unremarkable, and a lot of it just feels like a big duty-free store. It’s worth seeing once but that’s about it.
The thing that I had most excited about was picking up some cigars, since I had heard that the cigar prices there are noticeably less than in the rest of Europe, and also they have quite a good selection of Cubans. What I didn’t realize, was that all the cigar stores closed between roughly 1:00 PM and 4:00 PM, precisely the time that we would be there. I walked around to each of the cigar stores and pressed my nose against the glass, looking in at shelves of boxes that would never be mine.
I stopped for a cup of coffee and a small cigar with one of the girls from my tour and walked back, a bit dejected, to meet the rest of the group to get back on the bus. As I waited for the group to join us, I saw a man walk towards and unlock the door to a small and very average-looking cigar store. It was about 10 minutes before they were supposed to reopen, but I frantically persuaded him to let me in. I had a look around. While there were a number of impressive boxes of Cuban cigars, he explained to me that they had already been purchased. At this time the supply of Cuban cigars across Europe was dwindling. There were only two Cuban cigars in the shop that were available for purchase; fortunately they were regional edition San Cristobals, and I snapped them up along with about 15 other random non-Cubans. I can confirm that the prices were excellent.
A bit happier, I boarded the bus, and we headed back to Barcelona.
We got back before nightfall, but just barely. I spent the evening, as I had the previous evening wandering around and having bites to eat and cigars and cocktails at various bars and restaurants near my hostel.
I had all of the next morning in Barcelona as well, and I did more of the same as I had done the previous day, wandering around and taking insights. Fortunately, as I got up quite early, I was able to visit some of the churches and areas before the throngs of tourists overtook them.
At about noon, I headed for the airport, as I had a 3:00 PM ish flight to Vilnius, Lithuania.