I am old school when it comes to roadmaps. I like to unfold a big map to chart a route unlike some that just punch their destination into a sat nav and drive aimlessly. While looking at my roadmap, I noticed ‘Andorra’ with blue dotted lines around it. “Must be an independent country,” I thought, so I googled it and sure enough, it is! Don’t remember learning about that at school (not that I remember learning much at school!). As you might remember, we like visiting these micro countries so I planned the minor diversion to our trip.
As we were leaving Castelldefels I noticed we were driving along the motorway with the sea to our left. “This sat nav is taking us South”, I said to Linda, when I knew we should have been heading North. I pulled up and checked the sat nav and worked out that it was taking us to Andorra in Spain. Three hours in the opposite direction! Fortunately we had only travelled about 10km – imagine if we hadn’t checked! I wouldn’t mind betting it happens quite often.
Andorra la Vella is actually the capital of Andorra, a tiny independent principality in the Pyrenees Mountains between France and Spain. It’s known as a duty free retail hub. That was enough to get Linda excited!
It was quite a climb to get there but still only about three hours out of Barcelona. We had a hotel booked in the centre of town. It was noticeably different to Spain. The style of the buildings, traffic signs and general tidiness gave more the feel of Switzerland – must have something to do with the abundance of money! I already noticed the price of fuel was considerably less than Spain, and Linda couldn’t wait to hit the shops.
Just the righht size! 
Shopping streets
We wanted to stock up on medications that were going to be expensive or hard to get in France, as well as some Whiskey, Gin and several other spirits that were priced so attractively we couldn’t pass them up- Hendricks Gin at half price, how could you leave that behind!!
We also bought a ‘GoPro’. Linda had bought me a ‘gimbal’ back in Spain but it was far too complicated to get my head around and was extremely frustrating to use so it went back to the store. The GoPro was not much easier but I’m slowly getting used to it.
Our hotel had a trendy restaurant attached so we chose to eat there rather than braving the near freezing conditions outside. The food along with attentive staff was very good, which made for an enjoyable evening.
We had another walk around the city after we checked out and then retrieved our car from the garage to head towards the French end of the country. A detour to a mountain top observation area was well worth it. The views were spectacular and we were blessed with a very clear day.
Hilltop lookout 
Airwalk 
Sitting on the edge
One more stop just before crossing the border to have some lunch. There was a huge shop that sold just about everything from cannabis beer to wooden penises with ‘Andorra’ embossed on them. They encouraged the sampling of wines, some fine smoked meats and yummy cheeses. We had tried so much we didn’t feel like lunch so we just had a coffee and got on our way.
Cannabis Beer 
Woody! 
Who needs lunch!
Just like crossing from Spain to Andorra, it was equally as noticeable crossing from Andorra to France. The buildings were older and grey, roads were different and the biggest give away – the signs were written in French!
Toulouse was the target for the days driving. It wasn’t that far away but the dark drizzly conditions made if a painful journey and I was pretty relieved to arrive at our hotel on the outskirts of Toulouse. We were staying at an Ibis Hotel which is pretty basic, cheap and cheerful but perfect for a ‘road stop’ with easy, secure parking and a standard that is reasonable, which is good for avoiding nasty shocks.
Our plan was to drive to our next house sit in Curzon, located on the west coast just south of Nantes. Our house sit wasn’t due to commence for another six weeks but it was a good opportunity for us to meet our new hosts, and they had kindly allowed us to leave our luggage there as we were continuing onto Paris to return the car and fly to Iceland.
We opted not to go with the Ibis breakfast so I drove to a nearby Lidl store in the morning to get some fresh croissants and juice for breakfast. I couldn’t find a cafe much to my dismay but I noticed a Renault Dealership next door to Lidl. Car dealerships always have coffee machines in their service waiting area and this one didn’t let me down. As long as I looked like I was supposed to be there no one was likely to challenge me. I wouldn’t have understood them even if they did!
We were very close to Toulouse airport which neighbours one of the largest Airbus factories in Europe. That was evident by the number of vehicles around bearing the name ‘Airbus Industries’ on them. The idea of touring the factory that manufacturers the A380 jumbo aircraft appealed to me but I didn’t think it would excite Linda too much. I didn’t suspect it would be a quick tour and we had some distance to cover that day. We didn’t have time to look at Toulouse either so we continued along the ring road and headed in a northwesterly direction. We did have time however, to take the ‘B’ roads instead of the toll roads. Slower but a much more scenic drive and some of the villages we drove through were traditionally charming and picturesque. So traditional in fact, that we couldn’t find anything open to get some lunch as all the shops were closed for “la sieste”.
We giggled like a couple of school children when we drove through a town called ‘Condom’ and entertained ourselves by stopping to have some lunch while making all the obligatory jokes! After a long pleasurable drive we found ourselves a small house for the night on Booking.com not far from Jonzac. It was toasty warm when we walked in, which was nice because it had become chilly once the sun had gone down and the overnight temperature got so low, a water bottle I left in the car was frozen solid the next morning, Brrrr.
Once I had scraped the ice from the windows we were on our way for the final stretch to Curzon.
Look out for the next blog to meet our new pooches.