Andorra heaven or hell

Advantages: cheap good mountains
Disadvantages: too many people shopping

...Andorra is a small principality of 180.6 sq miles in the Pyrenees between Spain and France. We chose to go there for the day as it was between where we were staying in Spain and where we were going to in France, and we thought we would pick up some cheap booze. Andorra has a different tax system that is what makes wine cigarettes and luxury items so cheap Andorra is a long thin country with one main road going the length of it with a few miner roads into mountains, mountain villages and ski stations .T he country side is beautiful majestic mountains sparsely covered in grass a few fir trees and an occasional flower with mountain streams tumbling and trickling down the mountainside. Rocky contours with bare rock peaks rising into the blue cloudless sky it is a sunny day the sunlight picking out the snow on the permanent snow fields...

mumsymary 01.06.2003 · Read review
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Review of General: Andorra

TAKE A TOURA OF ANDORRA

Advantages: Scenery, perfect for a winter holiday
Disadvantages: Longevity is low due to small size of country and lack of alternative activities

...--- INTRODUCTION --- Andorra is one of the smallest countries in the world with only 181sq. miles of territory in which 60,000 people live. It is a landlocked country 'sandwiched' in the Pyrenees between France and Spain. It has recently taken on democratic methods of rule, but its heads of state are the French President and the Bishop of Urgel in Spain. It has adopted the Euro, but is not a fully fledged member of the EU, the mainstay of the economy is tourism. Andorra is currently going through a building boom with most of the buildings in Andorra not over 25 years old (as only 30 years ago it was a relatively poor country by European standards). This happened by taking advantage of the money injected into it by tourists of which it receives 12million a year. Most of the small communities along the main trunk roads are having...

Puma1000 11.03.2005 · Read review
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Review of General: Andorra

Get the most from ski-ing Andorra.

Advantages: cheap everything, great nightlife.
Disadvantages: not such good snow or terrain as the Alps.

...The individual resorts in Andorra, to my mind, are not big enough to have the necessary terrain to entertain a good skier/snowboarder for a week. Most people have covered the resort where they are staying in a couple of days, and from this point on, unless the snow conditions are exceptional, the world-beating apres-ski comes to play an increasingly large part in the trip. And so what if it does? ;-) Well, there is an alternative, which is to stay in the centrally-located capital, Andorra La Vella, and hire a car to drive to the resorts. Sure, it's more expensive to buy day passes than weekly ones, but if you decide to take a couple of days away from the slopes (no great loss if the weather is bad) you will be onto a winner. Car hire is cheap in Andorra, it is probably one of the cheapest places in Europe to hire the 4wd you will need...

jimh1 07.07.2005 · Read review
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Review of Andorra: General

Andorra - not just Pas de la Casa

Advantages: cheaper and quieter than the Alps
Disadvantages: long transfer

...Andorra has always been a great resort to learn to ski and board due to both the fantastic ski schools and cheap prices. This has given it a reputation for being a bit cheap and cheerful but over the past couple of years it has been trying to shake this image and go more upmarket. We have visited Andorra 4 times in the winter and once in the summer, and over the past year or two we have seen so much work going on, they are pouring in what seems like unlimited funds it's unbelievable. Which is all good! Andorra la Vella is a shoppers paradise but it is sooo busy traffic wise. Pas de la Casa is the most popular resort but also in my opinion the ugliest (but hey you're not skiing in the town - it has fab pistes!), whereas some of the other resorts are prettier with old stone buildings etc. Arcalis/Pal An undiscovered couple of gems...

girlscanboard 30.11.2007 · Read review
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Review of General: Andorra

Andorra, Paradize Lost

Advantages: Nature and sport activities
Disadvantages: crowds and heavy traffic in the town centre (I don't recommend you stay there)

...People who have lived in Andorra for a long time can’t but nostalgically remember the green fields just in the centre of town, mountain tracks, some of those are now unavailable for nature lovers, and the whole of the village atmosphere they once enjoyed. Most of them complain just for the fun of it; the new economy and duty-free shopping made most of them unbearably rich. But what do we care? We visitors are poor and the central shopping streets offer no landscape. You can actually enjoy the sensation of having the forest all over the place, in the centre of town the mountains seem walls covered with trees and that make them similar to what you always imagined to be hanging gardens, hanging forests. But if you do not raise the head it’s all people shopping, cars in traffic jams, shops and shops and shops and us trying to...

happy_hamster 24.03.2001 (21.05.2001) · Read review
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Review of General: Andorra

Andorra - High Altitude, Low Cost

Advantages: Cheap, friendly plenty of huge shops
Disadvantages: Traffic pollution hangs over the place like a blanket during the summer

...My mother-in-law lives in the south of France, roughly 90 km North of Andorra, in the foothills of the Pyrenees. You may think how lucky it is that my “mother-in-law” lives so far away (knowing all the mother-in-law jokes), but she is actually very cool and I get on with her like a house on fire. So the only lucky side to the distance, is what an outstandingly beautiful part of the world she lives in and that I get to visit whenever I like (pennies permitting of course!) Andorra is a very small country. It’s more of a principality really. It’s nestled neatly between France and Spain, very high up, in the Pyrenees. In fact it’s so small that you’d be forgiven for thinking it was merely a city when you look down at it from the top of the mountains you have to get over from France to get there...

joannavos 07.06.2001 · Read review
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Review of General: Andorra

First time boarding in Andorra

Advantages: Cheap, excellent snowboard school
Disadvantages: Transport

...After planning to go snowboarding with my best friend for 4 years, we got our act together and booked to go this January. It had to be cheap, and we were absolute beginner boarders. Both competent skiers mind. Getting there. We home at 3 in the morning to get a 7.30 flight out of gatwick to toulouse, followed by a 3 hour bus journey up to the tiny village of soldeu in Andorra - El tarter is the next village over on Andorras only road. We arrived at our hotel at around 2 in the afternoon, unpacked, and then reached the first and only major problem of the holiday. The only public transport is buses, and they are infrequent, and manned by drivers with little English. Still, we eventually found one and got down to the kit shop in the village (two kilometers away) to hire our boots and boards. The next 5 days passed in no time...

robachamings1 28.01.2005 · Read review
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Review of Soldeu El Tartar (Andorra)

  For Whom the Bear Talks

Advantages: Accomplished, vital and original
Disadvantages: Lyrics are not a strong point

...Andorra by Caribou Point Me at the Sky? You can generally rely on Canada to come up with some good modern music, from old stalwarts of the business like Leonard Cohen and Neil Young to newer acts like Arcade Fire and Rufus Wainwright and his sister, Martha. Unless you happen to live in Canada, however, finding something nearer the cutting edge may prove to be a little more problematic. One place you could begin the search is the Polaris Music Prize, an annual award (currently $20,000) given to "the best Canadian album of the year". Our nearest equivalent in the UK is probably the Mercury Prize, although the Polaris is more likely to throw up some oddities and surprises as it is not restricted to any particular musical genre. The sure-fire, dead cert winner of the 2007 Polaris was Arcade Fire's brilliant "Neon Bible". Nobody...

Mitsudan 08.02.2009 · Read review
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Review of Andorra - Caribou

This is Supermarket Sweep as seen on TV

Advantages: Tax-free shopping
Disadvantages: Not easy to get there

...In Andorra, all goods are tax-free. During my stay in Spain some time ago, my friends and I joined a half-day shopping trip to Andorra originally organized for local senior citizens. The organizer took us on because she had some spare seats in the coach. The fare was quite reasonable at £7 per person. We set off at 5am from Barcelona and crossed the border with Andorra at about 8am. After a further 10-minute drive, we arrived at a supermarket situated amongst the snowy mountains. When we were still admiring the scenery and taking pictures, all our elderly travellers had already disappeared in thin smoke. The Spanish lady who organized the trip pointed out that we only had one hour to do our shopping. We then rushed into the supermarket, pushed our trolleys frenziedly and grabbed whatever seemed cheap on the shelves, just like...

LBoy 24.04.2001 (12.05.2001) · Read review
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Review of General: Andorra

a small paradise

Advantages: shops, landscapes
Disadvantages: maybe too small :)

...This is a big little country. I live in Barcelona, and Andorra is really close to my home. I know that is too far away from uk to go there just to go for a walk. But if you are travelling to France or Catalonia (Spain) and you have enough time... think about visiting that small paradise. There are two things that are characteristic of Andorra: the landscape and the shops. The landscape is beautiful because Andorra is full of small valleys and pretty mountains. If you are walking by the city you can see at both sides big mountains that are really close because Andorra is on a valley. Shopping is one of the usual activities there. The reason is that Andorra hasn't have the typical taxes of any european country (lots of people have their money on Andorran banks). You can find lots of great shops there. One of the best...

cerb 26.12.2001 · Read review
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Review of General: Andorra