Deadly serious

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.