The Mediterranean
Andorra
A Pyrenean co-principality with two heads of state, no airport, and the highest capital in Europe.
Andorra is 468 square kilometres of Pyrenean valley, jointly headed by the President of France and a Spanish bishop — an arrangement running since 1278. Catalan is the official language. It is best known for duty-free shopping and skiing, and least known for Romanesque chapels and a genuinely wild high valley on the UNESCO list.
Getting around
No airport and no railway. Buses run from Barcelona, Toulouse and the French rail station at L'Hospitalet. Inside the country, buses go up every valley.
When to come
Two clear seasons: skiing from December to April, and high walking from late June to September. May and October are between them and much of the mountain infrastructure shuts.
Worth knowing
- Not in the EU or Schengen, but there are no routine border controls with France or Spain; customs limits are enforced.
- Fuel, alcohol and electronics are cheaper here, which is why the main road is a queue on Saturdays.
- The Madriu-Perafita-Claror valley has no road at all and is entered on foot.
At the table
- Trinxat: cabbage, potato and bacon, mountain winter food
- Escudella, a heavy Catalan stew
- Cheese and charcuterie from the valley farms, and Pyrenean lamb
Travel regions
1 editorial regions, each opening onto its cities.
Popular destinations
The destinations we have written most about, which is not the same as the ones most people go to — and is the only ranking we can honestly compute.
Experiences here
A sample of what is listed across Andorra.
The Journey Planner holds all 2 of these destinations and the real distances between them. It opens on 2 days, which is the shortest stay this atlas records for each of them added up — change the length, the month, the budget or the pace and build it again.
Fixed points in the year
The record
What we hold about Andorra, where each figure came from, and when it was last checked. The score says what this country is for, not how good it is — it is useful once you are already interested and is not a reason to be.
- Capital
- Andorra la Vella
- Currency
- EUR — euro
- Languages
- Catalan
- Population
- 77,142 (2019) — Natural Earth 1:50m admin 0 countries
- ISO codes
- AD · AND
- Time zone
- CET/CEST (UTC+1/+2)
- Membership
- Uses the euro
- Typical day
- €60–145 per person
- Best months
- January, February, March, July, August
- Quieter months
- June, September
- Facts checked
- not verified why this matters
Europe Experience Score
How this is calculated — derived from our own tagging, not from measurement. It says what a place is for, not how good it is. The tick on each bar is the median across the whole Atlas, so a bar short of it is a dimension this place is not for.