We had booked 10 nights in an Airbnb in Pas De La Casa, in the northeast of the small principality of Andorra. It is a small country: you can drive across it in under an hour in good traffic. There is one main road that traverses the country. Other roads branch off this main road, leading up the side valleys, and are mostly dead-ends. It is also a very prosperous country, its economy is mostly based on the year-round tourism industry. It has one of the highest employment rates in the world. In winter, people flock to the many ski resorts. When the snow begins to melt in the spring, the summer tourism season begins. Campervans, motorcycle tourers, hikers, road cyclists, and mountain bikers all come here in large numbers. It is an outdoor adventure paradise.
It is also a tax-haven too. At the time of writing, you can get a litre of Absolut Vodka for 10 Euros and 200 cigarettes (B&H) for 40 Euros. Food is cheaper here in the supermarkets too. Every day French people flood into Pas De La Casa to stock up on supplies.
There are 4 main languages spoken here, and the locals seem to effortlessly switch between them: Catalan, Spanish, French, and English. I know a little French and Spanish, so was able to switch between the two depending on which words I could remember, and still be (kind of) understood.
Compared to the Pyrenees I had seen before we got here, Andorra is very developed, even more so than the developed parts of the French Alps. Oddly for a mountainous region, it feels very cramped and a touch claustrophobic in the urban areas. There is no free parking anywhere near a town, and it’s usually quite difficult to find a place to park. People with large motorhomes should plan ahead before visiting here.
Hiking
There are a lot of hiking trails in Andorra. When the kids were smaller, we spent some great days in the French, Austrian, and Italian Alps by riding the ski lift to the top and then walking back down to the bottom. I was expecting to do something similar here in Andorra. We did a few walks, but I prefer the Alps for this type of walking: there is a better choice of walks to walk down from the lift stations in the Alps than in Andorra. Below are 3 short hikes that we did:
Short hike to the lake – Pas De La Casa
This was a short and very pleasant walk from our apartment in Pas De La Casa up to a small reservoir. We continued further up and did some boulder-hopping on a massive rock-fall area above the lake. The scenery is stunning. It was really nice meandering around and taking a close look at our surroundings. We found a spring-fed pond with the clearest water you’ll ever see.
Grandvalira – Top of the lift to the bottom
This was a hike down from the top to the bottom lift stations at Canilo, Grandvalira. At the mid-station, there is a kids’ activity area, which our kids refused to make the most of. I should have saved my money. The top section of the walk was very nice. Fantastic views at the beginning, then dropping down into the forest before arriving at the mid-station. The second part of the walk is down was a very steep slog down the lift line. It is just a maintenance trail, and the gradient makes it quite hard on the knees.
Encamp – top of the lift to mid-station
This was a very pleasant stroll down from the top lift station to the mid-station at Encamp. It has great views. You can either follow the gravel road to the mid-station or take a more interesting route via the small waterfall. Although it is possible to walk the lift line maintenance trail down to the bottom in Encamp, it looked way too steep and perilous for us to bother with.
Mountain Biking at Vallnord
Riding bike parks all day is exhausting. As this would be the first time I would be taking the kids to a proper bike park in some proper mountains, I didn’t think they would handle a full day of hitting the trails. So to save a few euros, I went for a half-day bike & equipment hire. Andorra being the home of Commencal, we all hired full-suspension Commencal bikes. They even have a 24″ full-suspension bike which was perfect for Reece.
Vallnord bike park – MTB
We hit the green and blue trails, the reds being a bit too advanced for the kids. The blues in Vallnord were like the black runs at Llandegla, and like the reds in Bike Park Wales. We all had a fantastic day. In hindsight I should have paid the extra Euros and had a full-day bike hire: the kids still had plenty left in the tank after a few hours of riding, and we could definitely have done a few more hours. Tellingly, after our return to the UK at the end of the trip, I asked the kids what their favourite part of the trip was. With little pause, they both replied that the mountain biking was the best.
We hired bikes from La Massana at the bottom of the valley. We would have had more time riding if we had driven up to the bike park. It wasn’t a cheap day: with bike & equipment hire for three of us, and lift passes it was around 230 Euros, give or take. But it was awesome. Bringing our bikes here wasn’t possible for us with our vehicle camping setup. We would have needed a trailer. I had considered towing a trailer with our RIB boat and MTBs, but our trailer is not suited to off-roading. Trailers are a pain in the arse when trying to be highly mobile like we were on this trip.
Off-road driving
We had a really fun day of off-roading on the gravel roads in Andorra. I’m inexperienced at 4WD so it was a great opportunity to put into practice some of the tips I have seen on YouTube. I looked on Google Maps and there looked to be some gravel roads near the pass at Pas De La Casa.
Pas De La Casa to Encamp
The first part of the route led us to a couple of dead ends, but the views were fantastic and it was great to get off the asphalt.
Crossing back over the tar road, we headed along a track towards the ski resort, just near a wild camp spot popular with motorhomes. This looks to be the only way to access the network of gravel roads crisscrossing the fairly large ski area. The trail traverses the side of the mountain, following a green ski run, then drops down a steeper blue to the bottom of the lift station. Low-range first gear and lightly touching the brakes got us down this hill with no issues. From the bottom the trail snakes back up out of the valley to a col. Then it looks like you have lots of options. Not knowing the area, we chose to head towards Encamp because we could see most of the trail snaking down the valley in front of us. The trail was great. It was a bit tight in places – the Hilux does not have a very tight turning circle so we had to ride up onto the berms and get close to the edge of the trail. There are very steep and long drops into the valley bottom if you make a mistake. The endpoint is where the tar road begins at the Encamp lift station.
