This morning we woke up to bright sunshine, so we decided to take the drive up through the Pyrenees to Andorra and France that we’d planned to do yesterday.
We could see fresh snow on the higher slopes, but the road was dry.
We were only about 10 miles from Andorra, so it didn’t take long to reach the border.
There was a border crossing building, but no one was there to check our passports.
Andorra is the 6th smallest nation in Europe and the 16th smallest in the world. It’s not a member of the European Union but has a “special arrangement” with them. The Bishop of Urgell and the president of France are co-princes. Their politics, economics, etc., are very interesting, to say the least.
Apparently Andorra is a tax-haven and vacation destination. We saw LOTS of luxury condos and hotels (but it was hard to get photos).
And more were being built.
John was here in 2022, and he was amazed at how much more development had been done since then.
The further we went - which meant the higher up we went - the more snow we began to see.
This was concerning - we lacked both traction tires and chains. Fortunately, we soon found ourselves following a snow plow.
The road was clear the entire way, but we saw evidence of very recent snowfall.
Ski runs were close to the road.
There was a border crossing into France as we left Andorra. This time there were police standing by the booths. We had our passports ready, but the police were busy chatting with each other. We tried to get their attention to see if we should stop or drive on through, but they couldn’t be bothered to respond either way. We drove on through.
There are several long tunnels through the Pyrenees, most with tolls. We paid about 40€ in tolls for tunnels today. (I just discovered that I’ve been writing money incorrectly - the euro sign goes after the amount.)
We descended into a beautiful and very rural area of France.
This area is so rugged that you can understand why it hasn’t been destroyed by wars the way so many areas of Europe have been.
The border crossing back into Spain was mellow.
We went through several towns en route to our next stop, the Parador in Cardona.
Lots of interesting buildings.
What we couldn’t find, though, was anywhere to get lunch, and we were getting hungry. Sometime back, just before yet another tunnel, we passed a gas station that looked like it might have had some kind of fast food, but we were past the turnoff before we could get a good look. After that, nada.
Our lodging today is an old castle on top of the hill overlooking the town of Cardona. It’s very neat - parts of it go back to the Middle Ages, and other parts were added on in later centuries.
The views are amazing.
According to one of the information signs, there’s been a community here since the Neolithic period because there’s a mountain of salt here. If you look closely at the left side of the above photo, you’ll see what looks like snow - it’s salt.
We can see from our window where they’re working on reclaiming the land that had been a salt mine until fairly recently.
The old salt house is still there.
Finding this Parador was challenging. We have two GPS’s - one that we brought and one in the car. One of them had never heard of this place, and the other one wanted us to go in the opposite direction. Thankfully there were a few signs, so we got here.
Once we found it, we still had the challenge of getting to it.
We had to go through the archway, which is barely wide enough for a full size car, up this steep, narrow road, then make a 180 degree turn at the top.
On the left side of the above photo you can see this cute little guard station. Guards must have been pretty small back in the day.
Castles generally lacked parking lots, so we improvised a good spot. The clerk at the desk thought it looked like a good spot, so there we are.
Since we still hadn’t found lunch, we checked in and left our bags at the desk to get to the dining room before they closed.
Neat room and a great lunch - it was worth the wait!
The castle/hotel is pretty neat.
Check out the low door under the stairs - that’s the entrance to the dining room. Even I had to watch my head!
I climbed to the top of this round tower that was built in the 17th century. Fantastic views in all directions - but I guess that was the point of a tower like this.
Like any self-respecting castle, this one had a church - these were the cloisters.
I didn’t get a picture of the whole castle from below the hill - I’ll try to get one when we leave tomorrow.
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