We chose Andorra for a few of reasons. First, we like the mountains for hiking and mountain biking in the summer. Second, we thought it would be cooler with less chance of a canicule. Thirdly, we heard about the great snow the Pyrénées (that's how it's spelled in French) got during the winter of 2025-26 and we wanted to check it out for our future skiing.
The form of government in Andorra tickled us. It is a co-principality. It is headed by two symbolic co-princes (the President of France and the Bishop of Urgell, Spain) but is run by a prime minister, the Cap de Govern. We were flummoxed by the road signs--the official language of Andorra, and the first language on the signs, was Catalan. Even the polyglot, Dimitri, didn't understand.
At first glance (and second and third) the mountain vistas were not gorgeous like they were in the summer and winter of 2025 in the Dolomites and Val Gardena. The main valley of Andorra is very narrow and the mountains rise steeply from the one, main road, Carretera National 2. That road carries all of the traffic; it was noisy and the speed on it was scary.
We stayed in apartments at two different 5-star hotels in Soldeu, the town on the western side of the long valley. It was a 35 minute (without traffic on the main (the only) road) drive to the capital of Andorra, Andorra La Vella. We only went there a couple of times during our month stay. We had all of our meals in and around Soldeu because an hour of driving for dinner turned us off.
Our first apartment was for our first week and it was at Serras Hotel.
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