Andorra la Vella; Friday, 19 June, 2015

I had a quick breakfast and then headed out of the hotel to the Old town to pick up the tour bus for a morning tour. The tour took in some of the high land immediately to the east of the capital, but first started with a visit to the Electricity Museum.

The museum was very interesting, as the history of electricity production in Andorra, almost exclusively Hydroelectric, is also the history of the transformation of this small nation from a poorly connected mountainous backwater to the thriving modern state that it is today. What’s more surprising is that’s all happened in less than 100 years ago. Photos in the museum show the first roads towards France and Spain being built in the 1920’s and 30’s which appears so recent for a country to have been able to create basic communication links between its neighbours.

From the museum the coach headed up into the mountains, following a tight and winding road up to the lake at Engolasters, which powers the hydro station we had previously been looking at. The lake today houses a number of activities, including walks and adventure trails. Sadly, the main feature of the lake that will stick in my mind was the point at which my already frail camera finally gave up the ghost and died. The message being displayed I discovered when I got back to the hotel basically said – if you haven’t taken out an extended warranty on this, buy a new camera.

After a brief pause for coffee at a lakeside café, the coach took us back down a couple of hundred yards to a former mountain trail that has now been expanded into a long flat path trail leading through the mountains. About 10 minutes’ walk down the path we came to viewing platform from which there were amazing views down the valley to the Capital and beyond.

Back on the bus and we continued down the hill to the small Romanesque church of Sant Miquel d'Engolasters to have a look around before getting back on the bus to drive back down into town and the end of the tour.

I headed back to the hotel to check on my laptop exactly what the message on my camera meant and if there was an easy remedy. There wasn’t – it was dead – so I decided to take advantage of the exceptionally low tax rate, and the very favourable exchange rate, and visited one of the numerous camera shops on the main street in the old town.

About 20 minutes later and many Euros lighter I was the proud owner of a new camera body (the lenses from the now dead camera being of the same fit). I headed back to the hotel to drop my shopping off and then headed out into town for a walk.

The Anella Verda or Green ring is a series of trails that go round the mountain sides surrounding Andorra La Vella. Almost completely flat (once you’ve hiked up the side of the hill to reach them), they provide pleasant easy walks and stunning views. For the afternoon I headed up to the path running along to the North of the city (or the sunny path as it’s referred to). The path is about 4Km long and runs alongside an irrigation channel that gently burbles away next to you whilst you walk.

In the end I followed the path past the centre of town and part way up the Northern valley for about a kilometre out of town, stopping at one of the ancient bridges over a mountain stream that used to link the mountain paths together – today overshadowed by the main northern road shooting past it.

It was a fairly long and quite steep walk back down into town after which I headed back to the hotel to freshen up before heading out for dinner in a very nice restaurant just up from the hotel.