What's in Andorra

Andorra is a little landlocked country high in the Pyrenees between France and Spain. I went there, and here's what I saw.

Mountains

Andorra is predominantly made of mountains. If you like mountains, Andorra is the place for you.

Futuristic buildings

The guidebooks are pretty scathing about Andorra's dull buildings. But there are some interesting buildings including the small-Shard-esque spa building.

Shops
Like many microstates, Andorra is a tax-free duty-free shopping haven. I had expected that the town would be empty in the evening as day-trip shoppers went home (like in San Marino).

But there was a buzy atmosphere well in to the evening, which was nice.

Eva's map of Andorra, Charlotte's map of Monaco

In my quest for maps of micronations, I took a trip recently, travelling first to Andorra and onwards to Monaco.


In both places, lovely people working in the tourist offices drew maps for me. I'm nervous of tourist offices, as whenever I've asked their staff  to draw maps, they hand me one of their many printed maps.

Eva in Andorra was about to do this, but I convinved her that I wanted a hand-drawn map. "OK", she said, and set about producing the most detailed map I've got. It's in four colours and has a legend.

I explained in fledgling Spanish why I was asking for a drawn map. "It's very interesting", said Eva looking proud of her map. And well she should.

Later in the trip, in Monaco's tourist office, Charlotte drew another wonderfully detailed map of Monaco. At one point, I wondered nervously if she was just drawing Monte Carlo and not Monaco. Then I realised it's pretty much the same thing.

Charlotte seemed pleased with her map too. "We've never had anyone ask us for this before," said her colleague.

 

 So these two very detailed maps come from two very small states - and it seems very appropriate for my project to give them as much space as the whole map of larger countries like Russia or Germany.