It’s a bit like LA, but prettier, smaller and built in a valley, and with less Americans. It is a long strip, most of the way through the country with shopping malls, cheap petrol and garages.
It being a tax haven, if you want booze, fags or fuel, here is the local place to go.
The fuel really was the only interest for us out of that list so we went for an explore.
The trip over quite frankly took forever, driving along winding roads through gorges and up and down mountains. It was beautiful but very tiring, trying not to drop off a ravine or become crushed against the side of a cheese grater rock face. After what seemed like forever we stopped at a town called Livia, a town in Spain, but in France, but in Spain. It’s an enclave of Spain that is an island in a sea of France. Due to a legal oversight in 1659 within the Treaty of the Pyrenees between France and Spain, all villages were given to France, Livia unfortunately was classified as a city due to it being an ancient capital, so it was declared part of Spain.
There was a frog in the tree stump hole that should have held a cache, so it wasn’t a completely wasted journey.
Leaving here we continued to Andorra. We had a look in the shops and were completely uninterested really. A lot of the stuff was tacky, to be smoked or to be drank, so we left it. It is a shame really, if we were shopping for items for a new home etc then it would have been wonderful there was plenty to buy, we were just completely in the wrong mood.
Had a great pizza though in one of the department stores. Even if the ordering system was completely nonsensical. Make your choice, pay at the hidden and not signposted till, take your receipt to the bar staff, who then shout over to the pizza chef, who was the first person we’d spoken to in the restaurant. Ridiculous.
As we drove north, through Andorra, the roads widened a little and the traffic lightened. The houses thinned out and the Pyrenean countryside opened up, well, it was pretty mountainous still but hey, we could see green stuff. As Andorra is a tax haven, the customs control at the border is quite stringent. As Brits, the guy looked quite disappointed and a little disbelieving at the fact that we’d only bought a Toblerone. Ah well, maybe next time.
The drive home was a little lighter, there were a lot less cliffside roads and more driving through beautiful (alpine) meadows. We had a short rest stop at the top of a pass, the Col de Chioula, and there was a girl on a donkey. And some very pretty flowers that I’d seen a short report on Countryfile shortly before we came away. I felt very knowledgeable.
Arriving home absolutely shattered, I worked out we had driven about 175 miles in about 8 hours, crap really, but very pretty.
We went for an evening stroll in the town of Lagrasse and I managed to get some ace looking night time photos and then to bed, broken.
I suppose I should mention the thunder and lightning before I get a telling off. We had lots of them, laying awake with the windows open listening to the rain and having the occasional flash of lighting, awesome!
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