Andorra

Andorra is beautiful but with days and days and days that cycled from raining to hailing to snowing, with the odd bit of overcast and a tummy bug for Lucas thrown in, we had a lot of inside time! We were glad for an apartment with enough room to stop us going crazy, large windows with a pretty view, and radiators to dry our clothes and shoes when we ventured out.

We filled our inside time with playing ‘rollercoaster’, ‘kitchen-sponge cricket’ and ‘library’, as well as the usual Bananagrams, Dutch Blitz, colouring, reading, and screen time. We have a pretty busy next few months, so we made the most of the downtime.

There was a brief break in the weather one day so we visited the Tibetan Bridge of Canillo – a 603 metre long swing bridge over the Vall del Riu valley. It was a beautiful spot and we had fun playing in the alpine tussocks on the other side.

To give us a bit of purpose to some of our adventures in the rain, we went Tamarro hunting. Tamarros are mythical creatures who are the protectors of the forests and nature in Andorra. They live in a parallel world and only come to Andorra when they are needed, but they can only come via a portal that is shaped like them. The portals are spread right throughout Andorra, so it was a wonderful way to see the country. There are 7 ‘parishes’ (districts) and there is one Tamarro that lives and protects and is named after each parish. The back of the Tamarro has a hole for you to place a rock to help the Tamarro move through the portal.

Once we had visited the portals for all 7 Tamarros and clipped the Tamarro booklet at each one, the kids collected their prize of Tamarro dominoes from the Tourist Office. The booklets are designed to encourage kids out into the wild but we appreciated the encouragement to get out into the wild in the incessant rain! We saw beautiful views, lush forests, stunning waterfalls, and lots of fun little finds along the way. We even had a peregrine falcon fly along beside us, swooping and zooming along the hillside. If you’ve had a little one who was a Fireman Sam fan, you’ll understand the joy of seeing one of these in the wild! (they are the world’s fastest bird and world’s fastest animal (yes faster than a cheetah) and live almost everywhere except New Zealand).

On our last full day, we had a go at via ferrata (a mountain route with fixed ladders and cables). We had been hoping that we might get one fine day during our stay but it was still raining so we went anyway. Often via ferrata routes are put in by an adventure company and you have to pay for a guide to access them. In Andorra, they are free for anyone to use and have been placed in areas with varying difficulties. It is such a cool way to allow people to play in the mountains without it costing an arm and a leg. The cables are bolted to the rock face every few metres, so when you come to a bolt, you have to unclip one of your carabiners from the cable below the bolt and reclip it to the cable above the bolt, and then do the same with your second carabiner. The kids were absolutely amazing! It took about 2 hours to climb up and about 20 minutes to walk back down a very slippery pathway. There were some really challenging parts but the kids showed so much resilience and grit. It was so much fun and a great sense of achievement at the top.

We really enjoyed our time in Andorra but we definitely were there in the ‘off-season’. We’d love to come back both in the winter and in the summer, as the mountains, rivers and rocks look like they’d be super fun!

Our 3 months in Europe have come to an end – they have both flown and felt like a lifetime and we have had some incredible adventures. From here we catch the train to the UK to spend a month there – we are looking forward to some time with family and friends and have no doubt that more adventures await!