Deadly serious

Ok I've hardly been to enough to claim this is the worst but our final stop at Barcelona airport was horrendous. The air conditioning was poor, seats were lacking, there were virtually no shops and two places to eat. It's the worst place to be stuck with a two hour delay. People were queuing and sitting everywhere. It was a Twilight Zone. There's probably a part of hell that is built just like this that they send arms dealers and holiday bloggers. I'll check out Dante sometime. But it's a nice reminder that the holiday is over and being home is not that sad! 

This year we booked everything through Easyjet. It was easier that way and I like them more than other budget airlines. But they don't have the best punctuality. Our delay started as one hour but ended up being one or two more. But at least the phone app allowed us to watch our plane make the journey from London to pick us up. Eventually. 

Despite being in the middle of one of Europe's great mountain ranges, and one that pretty much defines Spain's economy being cut off from the rest of the continent, we saw surprisingly little of it. OK for our one day we saw nothing but mountains. But it was one valley and then the road in and out. But approaching Barcelona we caught sight of some stunning formations that just beg to be climbed. By someone who can climb. I can easily understand why people want to risk their lives being among these almost divine structures. But then again I'm also curious what it's like to run over hot coals. 

It's some months later that I find some images left on my phone that I forgot to upload. So this is our route back on our little minibus, the official public transport to the airport in neighbouring Spain. Given the terrorist attack in Barcelona two weeks later it colours our memory a little but as a Londoner it's not unusual. Our memory is also somewhat coloured by the subsequent referendum and violence but here the news is more relevant as Andorra is after all a Catalan outpost in the Pyrenees. They have their independence apart from a Spanish Bishop and French President as co heads of state. That's Europe for you!

And then goodbye to the people of the valley of Andorra. Although with so many Andorrans being immigrants (that's of the Spanish and French) you can't really call them a people so much as residents. It's been an odd brief visit. We can tick another country off the list but can't really say we got a load of the culture. If Barcelona was swamped by tourism, Andorra survives by tourism. This tiny country has no other reason to exist (economically) except to support a huge tourist and duty free culture. Of course in winter the snow redefines that tourism. But it's been a fascinating visit nonetheless. I've always had a curiosity about this country from the first time I saw it on the map as a young child but now 30 years or so later I suspect the country isn't what it was then. As we depart on our bus we snake through the valley leaving behind one big 'V' after another.

And goodbye to our Andorra hotel. It's been brief but comfortable. Our room was large even if the view (of a wall) wasn't much. Not that we had time to gaze outside. With our bags all packed I rushed out to get stamps to send some postcards, but after 45 minutes running around the city I had to give up. Many people, including police, try to point me in the right direction but none could be found. It didn't help I didn't know the local word for stamp. I remember a similar experience on the last day in New York, which was also a Sunday. Not a great day to use the postal service. At least there I did finally send them. Here I just pack my postcards and carry them home. 

And so we wake for our final breakfast. It's always a bittersweet moment when the relief that we can get some proper rest at home is mixed with that sadness it's all over for another year, at least. I don't know if it's age (in my case anyway), the colds, or just a busy schedule that made this the most exhausting so far. I order my scrambled eggs and pile up all I can for the last time. They even had soya milk here, the second place to have it, so enjoyed a bowl of chocolate cereal. It's always way too much, but we have a lot of travelling to do today before we're home. 

And here's some random Saturday highlights of our last day of holiday, before returning to Barcelona for a flight home. 

And so our final day finally comes to an end back in the city. We return a little early to catch the end of the shops. And a part of me regrets this. We enter crowds you'd expect on Oxford Street the day before Christmas. Queues of people are filling up on discounted booze (or whatever else is duty free) and we join them. Or at least I do. But it's not pleasant. How can we be in a small oasis in the middle of the Pyrenees and yet still find ourselves thrust into the middle of some of the worst commercialisms. The hardest part here is the smoking. They love it. And the advertising is everywhere. Every other shop has floor to ceiling with huge boxes of discounted cigarettes. It's like cancer never happened. I suppose this is what the world looks like without the EU. Bring on Brexit. We spend far too much time here and I almost pass out with the heat and crowds (but a quick drink in a tapas bar saves me). We finally head back to the hotel where I reorganise all our packing to ...

Back on our bus, we wind back down the side of the mountain with Andorra's capital city, Andorra La Vella, below us, the highest capital city in Europe, higher than the highest point in the whole of England. The valley is obvious in this photo. It's also obvious why this place became inhabited many thousands of years ago. I understand the Pyrenees doesn't have many passes and this area became an obvious oasis for early people. There was always going to be an Andorra. The Pyrenees rises gradually from the Spanish side, in what are technically called foothills. There's less of the dramatic cliff edges one would expect from one of Europe's major mountain ranges, but the Pyrenees does have plenty in Spain and France. We're in the more hospital parts. 

Back at the car park beside the first restaurant that doubles as our bus stop we wonder into a woods and notice a steep mountain bike trail. That would be the other way to do these parts. We had the option to hire bikes but somehow I don't think that was ever going to happen! Bikes always seem exciting before you hit the bottom of the hill. Andorra does seem to have more than its fair share of sporting shops so I have to assume, with the bike trail, that cycling is a big thing here. But we don't see too much. Not like our last day in Romania when the roads were almost impassable for our taxi with swarms (is that the right collective noun?) of Lycra-clad cyclists filling up the streets. And I remember Slovenia was bike crazy - we even arrived in Ljubljana at the start of some championship stage. 

So without much more planned and not eager to walk much further into the mountains (knowing our feet would not be happy) we slowly made our way back to the place the bus dropped us, stopping occasionally to enjoy the view. I feel as though Andorra really needs a car to make the most of a single day, or perhaps a body full of energy and an early morning. Just walking uphill now is exhausting and we've clearly reached the end of our trip. I assume the Pyrenees were the end point for many other travellers in millennia gone past. 

There were actually two restaurants, one higher up and one lower down. The lower one seemed to serve little so we opted higher up and were rewarded with the view from our table. They were nice staff and our meal was great. Katarina had pork chops and I had Catalan sausage. The official language of Andorra is Catalan so the area is connected well with the region of North East Spain, even though the country is officially headed by a shared arrangement between a head Spanish Bishop and the French President, who is officially Prince of Andorra. The waiting staff speak French, Spanish and Catalan. And indeed English. I pretend I too can speak some of those, with two or three words here and there. I don't think I fooled them. We took our time to enjoy the food, company and views.

We finally find our way to this lake in the mountains. One end is a damn so clearly human made. But it's a pretty and peaceful view after days of a ridiculous schedule. There's a walk further on deeper into the mountains and I'm tempted but we're so exhausted and pushing it here could be too much. So we just soak up the view for a short while. Maybe we should have stayed a little longer but we're getting hungry and were told there's a good place to eat at the end of the lake. 

What's a mountain without goats. We were dropped off at a small tourist spot by a restaurant and see directions to a lake nearby, taking is past some goats. I'm sure they have a purpose here but they make a brief distraction for my wannabee zoologist companion. We're not entirely sure where we're going but we follow the path and try to make some sense of our location using Google maps, which is notoriously poor outside city roads. 

So, as the only passengers we were taken higher up in the mountains rising steeply as Andorra's capital city disappears below. The snaking road could feel dangerous with a different driver but this is technically a public bus so it's quite a civil ride, not like a ride up Vesuvius some years back, when we weren't sure we'd make it back down. The minibus stops and waits a couple of times but there's nobody to join us and within 15 minutes we've finished our journey. 

And so after finding the tourist office and asking again for any tours we get the same answer. Get the bus. Ho hum. Well we return to the bus stop, but after another quick tour of the shops. We quickly realise Andorra is a tax haven. Shops selling discounted booze, perfume and electronics dominate all the streets. We'll be back later. In the meantime we have another minibus (nobody does full size buses here) and are actually the only passengers up to the mountains (only idiots come to Andorra without their own car) but at €1.20 each I'm not complaining. 

And so after walking the whole city, we eventually find the tourist office. Guess where. Well look at the photo. The tourist office is that building centre left with the M-shaped roof. Our hotel is the tall building just off to the right (mostly cut off). We circled the whole city and what we were looking for was where we'd started. We'd simply turned the other way leaving the hotel. Our feet sighed. 

Yep, we stumble across a Dali in a square near the tourist office. Well they didn't have this in Madrid's many art museums. It seems slightly out of place, or at least surprising, set among the buildings and mountains. But could a Dali actually ever be out of place? There is something slightly surreal about Andorra. 80,000 people living in the mountain valley almost completely dependent on tourism. The country has about 250 police and an army of about 10 (ceremonial) soldiers. Ok every household must own the gun, but they've not been needed in 700 years. 

With us here one day and little opportunity to plan beforehand we knew it would be tough to arrange an activity in the morning and we were right. The hotel tells us the only option we have is to take a bus to the mountains. So we head for the bus stop. And then we change our mind and look for a tourist office. We walk round the whole city centre (ok that only takes 20 minutes) and notice a single high street filled with tourists. We thought we'd left this in Barcelona. Andorra was not the idyll I was expecting. 

And so after making our way across the Iberian peninsula, albeit in only five hops (two planes, two trains, and one bus) we wake at our final destination, the Pyrenees. This tiny country, has a population less than Watford, and yet is about 1,000 years old. This is the view from our hotel, but it's misleading. I didn't opt for the room with a view so this was actually a zoom in the top right corner. There was actually a wall opposite our window. But we'd be back in the evening so why pay for a 5 minute view. Down for breakfast I was pleasantly surprised. It was impressive and loved the touch when they ask how you'd like your eggs when you enter. To be honest I don't like feeling like royalty, it feels exploitative, but I do appreciate the effort they make.  

Here's some pics from the bonkers Sagrada Familia and the crazy space age hotel. 

I had been expecting a coach to take us to Andorra, the last destination on our trip, but it was actually a shuttle or minibus. Since Barcelona (and Toulouse in France) are the nearest airports to the country they operate a shuttle service. It's not cheap but makes this journey practical. After two exhausting days in Barcelona I think we both hoped to catch some sleep. Unfortunately with such a small bus and winding roads up the Pyrenees, we get little rest. If anything we get travel sickness. We arrive about 11.30pm with a party atmosphere in the capital Andorra de Villa. We didn't expect that but we rush to bed. We need sleep. 

The Metro line to the airport is new and even my new travel guide didn't have it listed. It was a simple change and then nine stops. But as I've said, connections on the Barcelona Metro,  or entering and exiting, are long. The airport line took us down six escalators! It felt like it would never end. We were travelling to the centre of the earth. At the airport we weren't getting a flight, but catching a bus. We waited inside first in the terminal's flight arrivals, trying to avoid the sun. For the whole trip the early afternoon has been comfortably hot. It's about 6pm when the heat becomes oppressive. We were relieved when the bus finally arrived. 

We return to the hotel, after a long sort ride on the Metro because in Barcelona there's no such thing as a quick trip underground. It's a slow form of transport with long exit tunnels. At the hotel we rest a while and I get advice for our onward journey to the airport. We're advised to return to the metro. We say goodbye to our space station. 

Our final stop in the centre of Barcelona was this cafe in the University district. It was the cheapest place we'd seen in the city in I two rushed half days but the most satisfying. Who wouldn't want a hot dog covered in cheese and three doughnuts for a euro. I added an espresso in desperate need for caffeine. It's difficult to believe we even survived these two days of dealing with the Barcelona crowds. We've been to so many countries now you'd think we'd be used to all this, but on the contrary we cherish those cities that have still retained some balance - even Madrid had that. Zaragoza had a while to go before being swamped by these sorts of crowds. 

We struggle again finding the best connection in the Metro to return to the centre of Barcelona after leaving the cathedral and end up in the University district. Today was supposed to be all Gaudi and there plenty more buildings to see but we've had enough for the day. I couldn't do any more Catalan Modernism. In any case we had to be back at the hotel by 5pm to pick up our bags. So before leaving we walked the University district and found the part of Barcelona we liked the most, filled with little cafes and unpretentious and friendly shops. I'm not sure I'd rush to return to Barcelona but if I did I'd try to stay here. 

We spend a lot of time gazing up at the cathedral and then wandering around taking photos all the while. It's mesmerising. We finally decide we've had enough and head outside for a few more shots. The rear of the church gives us the most Disney appearance of the building. The bone-like supporting structures look almost polystyrene in their sleekness and lightness. 

For those who can load up 3D here is the ceiling of the Sagrada Familia. 

When you look at the details though, the striking Gothic vertical lines give way to the Art Nouveau, especially with the floral designs and some geometric patterns. In some ways it's a complete mess and that can be a slight turn off. But I'm sure for many it's also genius. As I've said nobody can deny it's boldness. I suppose when we see the traditional Gothic church today it's so familiar that we forget how it must have seemed to the medieval peasant on a once-in-a-lifetime pilgrimage. They wouldn't have seen something ancient or familiar. They would have seen something modern and almost alien. Well the Sagrada Familia definitely achieves that. But also perhaps one element becomes more more obvious in its novelty, it says look at me and not look at God. There is as much arrogance here as there is piety and again perhaps that is also closer to the original Gothic. 

It's surely impossible to capture this cathedral with a single photo. The outside was a little marred by the scaffolding as they still have towers to complete but inside has much less disruption. In fact it's a little mind boggling. Your eyes get lost in the architecture. You could just sit here all day admiring the complexity. They say Gaudi designed with 3D models and not drawings. He sculpted this design. Although who knows how much interpretation there has been in the near century since his death. Really it's something that wouldn't be out of place on the set of Alien or Lord of the Rings.