Just recently had I even heard of Andorra. Has anyone been there? What is the culture like? I'm very curious about it.

You will like it. It has the road in from Spain and exits into France. It has not taxes, more duty free shops than you can imagine. When I first went there in the early '70s it had not been discoverd as a tourist destination. Now the moutains are covered by ski slopes, hotels, condos. Food is from every corner of the planet. They have a military but everyone is an officer, I don't know who cleans the latrines or peels the potatos. To give you an idea of the prices, a three once bottle of Channell #5 is about $150 in a department store here in Phoenix, that same bottle in a duty free store in Andorra was 18 Euros.

VERY steep mountains.

I could go on and on about Andorra, but this web does not have that sort of space. One place you might want to check out for more information is WWW.escapeartist.com you can put in Andorra once you bring that up. It will tell you about the economy, culture.

Don't feel bad about just haveing heard of Andorra, most people go through their entire life not knowing about it. In the movie Pricess Diary they sort of elude to it being Andorra that they are talking about as they say she is the princess of a tiny country between Spain and France.

Take money so that you can get the things you always wanted but could not afford, a good camera and tons of film. You will need all three.

Andorra produces some of the most beautiful stamps in the world! It's worth crossing the border just to buy them!

Good Morning DD:

I find myself in the rare position of disagreeing with one of your posts. I was in Andorra two years ago. I entered from the French side and stayed for one night in Andorra La Vella (I'm not sure that I spelled that right).

I really did not like the place! Most everything that I saw there was new e.g. trinket stores, discount gas stations, bingo parlors, and the city smelled like diesel fumes. There were tacky neo-neon signs everywhere and way too many perfume, watch, and camera stores. I found one old church, but it was locked up.

I was very glad to go back to Spain!

Dave B: The problem is you entered from the French side. It would have looked a lot nicer had you entered from the Spanish side.

[img]http://www.skitur.cz/katalog2007/_includ...w=228&h=148[/img]

Andorra is a beautiful country located in the the middle of the Pyrenees between France and Spain.

It was a county owned partially by Spain and partially by France (depending on the years), and it was finally declared a co-sovereign duchy. As an independent country in modern times it had as co-chiefs of the state (co-princes) the President of the French Republic and the Bishop of Urgel. Now it has a democratic parlament, while still it has the co-princes as a honorific titles.

Time ago it has the spanish peseta and the french francs as the co-official coins. Now it has only euros (Andorra will emit its own euro coins in the future, same as San Marino, Monaco and the Vatican City).

The official language is the catalonian (they are close to Catalonia), though spanish and french are spoken by most andorrans too. It is interesting that portuguese is common too, due to a heavy inmigration (10% of the population if from portuguese origin).

Tourism is the main industry, specially as a ski resort (half a dozen ski resorts), but it is also something like a fiscal paradise.

I've been there twice and it is a beautiful country worth of visiting if you like skiing and to shopping, but there are other spanish and french spots more worth the visit.

Official page

Fernando

Thanks DD, I will take your word for it!