Aaaaaandorra

Andorra has bugs

Whenever I go to Andorra, I inevitably think about Max Frisch's play of the same name. In one scene, the protagonist visits a doctor, who, to make sure his patient would open up his mouth well wide, makes him say: 

Patient: Aaaaaaandorra. 

Doctor: And again! 

Patient Aaaaaandorra. 

Doctor: Louder!

Patient AAAAAAndorra!

Doctor: Hold the A a little longer and say it as loud as you can!

Patient AAAAAAAAAAAAANDORRAAA!!
click here to read on

Well, at least that's how I recall it more or less. And while driving my car up and down the slopes of the mountainous Andorran landscape I cannot think of anything else but this very scene.

I don't like Andorra.

Were it not for the capital, Andorra La Vella, and the many villages which join the city so closely that you don't even notice when leaving one municipality and entering another, it could be nice there, for the landscape is utterly breathtaking, but fact is, that those human settlements resemble a tumor, which slowly infects the healthy parts of its surrounding. It unstoppable infiltrates its neighbouring tissues by turning forest into assurance offices, banks, parking lots and the like. And that, at best, is sad. It still gets worse if you take an even closer look at the landscape, because you soon will notice, the tumor no longer is limited to a well located focus, but already has turned into a metastatic form by spreading metastases into formerly healthy parts of the "body". Areas, totally unconnected to zones close to the infested core grow nasty appandices such as antennae, tarmac roads and even buildings. Buildings not of the type of dormant, inoffensive constructions such as medieval churches or stone bridges, but rather agressive ones like hotels and restaurants.

I've not even mentioned the many ski slopes - just imagine how bad the patient's situation is.

Okay, by now, I think you have made up a more or less accurate global picture of the capital of Andorra. Just to make sure I've made my point, I'm going to insist a little more: the city is full of cars and people who state dollar symbols in their eyes. They are fastly running up and down the narrow, crowded pathways, all in search for the next parfumerie, techstore, major mall or chemist's shop. Tiny smoke fumes come out of there pockets and purses, caused by their credit cards which have run hot.

Why then, you may ask, do I go to Andorra in the first place?

For mainly two reasons: first of all, the landscape of the less troubled Andorran parts is still very well worth seeing. In fact, it's absolutely beautiful and I guess that's exactly why it fills me with sorry to see the concrete labyrinth of Andorra la Vella.
Secondly, Elisabet gave a concert there last Saturday. During this year's summer she substitutes the female singer of a group called Café Trio with which she will stand on many stages. For me, the concert was quite interesting. I stayed in the backstage area throughout the whole gig and was amazed of the level of professionalism the group shows. The piano player, for instance, not only plays his instrument, but parallelly also acts as the director, light technician and sound engineer - all at once! The male singer, for his part, constantly switches from singing or talking to the audience to discussing technical issues with his colleagues and he won't hesitate to do so, even if he only has a fraction of a second of spare time. Well, and Elisabet, after having studied the lyrics, melodies and structures of some 150 songs in a matter of a few weeks only, doesn't appear to be nervous at all, when on stage.

Well, but I certainly wouldn't post all this, wasn't it for the fact that we stayed the night in Andorra in order to make an excursion on Sunday. Since we still had some shopping to do (shame upon me, even I spent some money on a Goretex jacket), our hike started later than expected, but as you can see in the photos spread into this text, still led us to a nice place - the lakes of Tristaina.

At 7pm then, we had reserved a spot in a famous spa called Caldea. Probably we wouldn't have gone there, but it was an offer that came together with the hotel: One night for two persons including breakfasts and two visits of Caldea for little more than 50 Euros. Nothing more to criticise.