… was quite impressive late this afternoon. Not quite right now though because the sun had disappeared behind the mountains but 5 minutes earlier it was warm and gorgeous and I’d been sitting out on the balcony reading a book.
You may be wondering why I’d been doing that but the truth is that I was totally whacked.
I’ve been on the public transport again – something that I seem to be doing more and more as I go about my business. This time though, it’s the bus. Something that I’ve not used since I was in Montreal in August.
Just €1:80 it was from the hotel into Andorra la Vella, the capital, and that’s good value at any price, especially as parking for anything over 2:00 metres (Caliburn is 2:12 metres) costs the proverbial arm and leg. And being on the bus is much less stressful too.
I found the Andorran National Sports stadium too. Andorra were playing Moldova in a friendly so I was determined to go to watch the game but, as you might expect, the best-laid plans of mice and men quite often go gang awa’ when I’m involved. The stadium is undergoing a total rebuilding and the match was being played elsewhere. GRRRRR!
But what a stadium! I’ve seen better stadia than this in the Puy-de-Dôme league back home. I’m not surprised that it’s undergoing rebuilding, but a well-known phrase involving silk purses and sows’ ears springs readily to mind.
Still, my journey wasn’t totally wasted. I spent most of the day wandering around to see what there was to see.
This is part of the old city and you can see how the place must have looked before the money started arriving. It’s a shame that there isn’t a great deal left. Everywhere you go, there are modern buildings and major construction work and it is a little depressing to see history being swept away. Although what seems to be being swept away are buildings from the 1950s and 60s and the first stage of reconstruction.
I found the old Parliament building – replaced by a modern multi-million Euro concrete-and-glass monstrosity three or four years ago. There was a free guided tour on offer too – in English I was told, but it turned out to be a fine example of classical Spanglish renowned the world over.
Apparently there were originally 24 members of the Parliament but this was enlarged to 28 some years ago. Now there is a proposal to enlarge the Parliament to 42 (cynics amongst you can well-speculate upon the reasons) and so a larger building is required.
I’m not quite sure why though – a good weekend’s work with three or four sledgehammers and a couple of acrows and we could soom make room for the required number of seats (if they really do need to enlarge the number of deputies) in the Casa de la Vall but of course, that wouldn’t make a nice shiny new office building though, would it?
I shall have to stop doing this – I’m becoming far too cynical for my own good. But then again, I blame my lifelong employment in the tourist industry and at the seat of European political power.
Next to the Casa de la Vall is the Church of St Esteve. Not Esteban as you might expect but Esteve, for one thing that I learnt here in Andorra la Velle is that the official language of the country is not Spanish but, since 1993, Catalan. No wonder I’ve been having difficulty making myself understood here.
The church dates from the 12th Century but fell victim to what in the UK would have been described as “Victorian Frightfulness”, which is a great shame.
We talked about modern buildings just now, and here’s one. What do you think that this might be?
My first thought was that it was a cathedral designed by someone from the Donald Gibson School of Wanton Vandalism in Coventry, but it is in fact a temple of the modern 21st Century religion – a fitness centre and thermal spa. I did go for a wander around inside but, quite frankly, it left me speechless and, as you know, that’s not something that happens very often.
But occasionally, on my travels I did come across the odd building that was worth photographing, but it wasn’t always possible to find a good viewpoint for a photograph without being cluttered up my modern buildings, road signs and vehicular traffic.
Hence, a photo like this is something of a rarity, which is a shame. But then, I do wonder just how long this building will be here.
Every third shop in Andorra is a tax-free shop, so it seems. And while yesterday we had a photograph of how friendly and accommodating the country is to terrorist bombers, here is a photo of how friendly and accommodating the country is to mass murderers, school assassins and armed robbers. Every weapon you want, and ammunition too, on display in the windows.
But with these tax-free shops, it’s clearly illegal to label the products with their prices. Seeing a priced item in one of these places is a rarity. My Spanish isn’t up to much, my Catalan even less, and so I’m not likely to be able to ask the prices or even to engage the shopkeeper in meaningful conversation, so from a real tourist point of view, these shopkeepers are wasting their time.
Andorra la Vella means “Andorra in the Valley” and so I couldn’t overlook the opportunity of taking a photo of the valley once I had found a suitable viewpoint.
But it wasn’t necessarily the valley that had caught my eye, but if you look at the roof in the very foreground of the photo, you’ll see that it’s equipped with some solar panels. We do occasionally have some sun here in Andorra la Vella – there was a bit today in fact – and it does clear the mountains across the valley.
So there you are.
So no wonder I’m whacked – especially as I also had a busy night too.
While I worked at Shearings in the summer season all those years ago, I had a winter job driving coaches for a local company in Crewe, with right miserable old boss in charge. Last night he had all of his coaches out, taking a huge group of passengers for a weekend to France (I’ve done this).
And all of his coaches too – even down to an early-1960s Harrington-bodied AEC that heaven alone knows where he must have dug that up from.
Anyway, it all descended into chaos. With these 8 or 10 coaches, we each had our passenger list? But we never picked up the people we were supposed to pick up – there were amendments, additions, crossings out until the passenger list was just hopeless. And why we were not setting out intil 14:00 onn Saturday afternoon for our weekend out was something that was totally beyond me.
It did recall a real adventure with this company when I, and another driver, were taking two coaches to Blackpool. We each had our passenger list but when I arrived at the pickups there were very few of my passengers but a load of other people who were waiting for a coach from the company for whom I was working. The other driver had arrived first and just picked up the first passengers that he could, and left me the rest.
“Nothing very important in the significant run of things” I hear you say, but in fact the coaches were doing different optional excursions – hence the two coaches – and this led to all kinds of confusion and recriminations, and the other driver making alternative arrangements with regard to employment opportunities.
