After the FIS Alpine Ski World Cup it was time to work our way back down to Barcelona. We’re flying back tomorrow. Boo to that. Vacations are great. Andorra is beautiful. We should stay here.
Don’t think we didn’t try to figure out a way.
Anyway, leaving the parking lot, we had two options. Left, or right. And the GPS said we had three choices. Two routes with tolls, and one route without a toll.
The Yankee was driving, and she hit the touch screen, aiming at the no tolls route. We turned right out of the parking lot.
That’s opposite from where we came, but we’re inherently trusting of the GPS, aren’t we? Anyway, we continue to climb higher and ever higher into the mountains.
We’re up in this area where there are signs warning snowkiters of high winds here at 6,233 feet. We’re almost 1.2 miles above sea level.
Come to find out — and it is funny how people can make the same realization at the same time — we were headed to … France. Also this was one of the toll routes. But the views were worth the price of admission.
This is how I’ll remember the mountains. Not that the memory is bad, but I like the fuzzy feel, rather like a memory or dream sequence in a bad TV show.
But if that’s not for you, here’s the same mountain. Not sure why the camera took the moment off. Maybe it was a French-Andorran frontier issue in the software.
Anyway, we drifted peacefully down through the mountains. The altitude got lower and the temperatures warmed up. We found ourselves in a delightfully rural little corner of southwestern France. Not a part of the trip, but now a part of the trip.
By here, the car and the road was hooking around back to the south; we’re heading toward Barcelona.
So there are two countries in this post. The first few mountains are from the Andorran Pyrenees, the rest are from the French Pyrenees. Even in France we saw Catalan flags.
Here’s a video version of some of these beautiful mountains, and more.
As we continued on the terrain turned from mountain rugged, to yellow and green farmland, from the rocky entisols and inceptisols and, finally, more of the reds and oranges and ochres of the Mediterranean coastal region.
But, first, we had to make a stop at a monastery.
