A musuem, a short hike and a fabulous lunch
For our second full day in Andorra Bridget and I had pre-booked a tour with Turistic Andorra which was to take us to a few places of interest and also included lunch! Again we had booked this in the Andorra La Vella tourist office.
Andorra is tiny and getting around anywhere within the country doesn’t take very long. Having left Andorra La Vella, about 20 minutes later our full sized bus pulled into Ordino, a small town.
Ordino
Ordino is the most northerly parish of Andorra with its main town also being called Ordino. Ordino is known for its 16th century ironworks and is considered the cultural as well as the industrial centre of Andorra.
Miniatures art museum
Our first visit in Ordino was to the Miniatures Museum which contains unique collections of miniature art mainly created by Ukrainian, Russian and Chinese artists. Some of the art was so tiny you had to look through microscopes to see it. For example, the figures of an Egyptian pharaoh and a goddess that had been composed in gold on a grape pip could only be seen when magnified many times.
The above image of the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona was created by painting with a very fine brush inside this small glass bottle.
With the Russian influence, the museum also houses a large collection of sets of (normal size) Russian dolls.
These Russian dolls were all hand painted. The largest doll represents the mother and the smaller ones are her children with the tiniest being the baby.
Together with the rest of the group, we had spent about 30-40 minutes in the museum where we had also watched a video to show how some of the art is produced. Following the museum, our guide took us on a small walking tour of the highlights of pretty Ordino.
Bridget, myself and our new Canadian friend were the only English speakers on a tour of about 35 people and as the guide also spoke reasonable English (separately to us) we were able to get the gist of most of what he was saying.
The 12th century Romanesque ‘Sant Corneli and Sant Cebria’ church and bell tower can be found in Ordino.
We had a look around the gardens of the Casa d’Areny-Plantolit while in Ordino. You can pay to go inside this heritage historical mansion house which was built in 1633.
Handcuffs could be seen chained to a wall in the historic centre of Ordino.
Ruta del Ferro
Ruta del Ferro translates to English as ‘the iron route’. Popular with families (and multi generational bus tours with mixed mobility levels) you can hike short or longer versions of it. The longer version is part of the tough GR11, a 28 km hike.
We had left Ordino and our bus driver had driven us to a point near a place called Llorts which was along this walking route. We followed the path adjacent to the river and along the route you can see various sculptures.
The iron wagon and pick sculpture represent the iron road with two of the key elements related to the mining of the iron.
We saw lovely views as we walked this small section of the iron road.
The above sculpture is called ‘Endless’ and shows two men rolling a heavy stone over this small bridge.
The next feature was interesting! There are seven statues in total which represent people from different parts of the world. The story suggests that these are all members of the Jordino family who meet in Andorra every year at Christmastime!
These figures were made in each of the countries they represent and were created by elements extracted from the earth.
In addition, there was Jeanne from St Petersburg, Aeyko from Tokyo, Richard from London, Izis from Cairo and Titi from Paris!
We continued our walk with the river on one side and panoramic views of the Pyrenees on the other. This was another gorgeous 24 degree summer day but in the wintertime, these mountains would be covered in crisp white glistening snow.
Following the end of the short hike and 5 minutes in the bus again, at around 13.30 the bus dropped us off, high up in a mountain village, at the pretty Hotel Bringue for lunch.
And what an incredible lunch it was! We sat in a delightful and airy restaurant and had a choice from 3 starters; 3 mains and 3 desserts. I had ‘Warm Goats Cheese Salad’ for my starter and it was superb. The goats cheese was warm and perfectly heated with a slightly crusty top drizzled with honey. Underneath was a mixed salad of mixed beans, lettuce, pine nuts in a lovely olive oil and balsamic vinegar dressing.
My main was trout, served steaming hot and cooked in a delicious Catalan sauce with a side of spinach and potato. Again this was fabulous. And washed down with a generous and tasty rioja.
We both chose Santiago tart for dessert as this reminded us of the delicious tart famous from Santiago de Compostella when Bridget and I did a section of the Camino Frances 2 years ago.
Ending with an espresso, lunch was so filling we didn’t have a meal later that evening when back to Andorra La Vella.
After lunch the bus drove us for 10 minutes to the far north of Andorra through the majestic scenery before turning round and driving us back towards Andorra La Vella.
We had a photo stop at a picturesque bridge.
We then stopped for the final time to look in the Esglesia Sant Marti de la Cortinada church which is free to enter and open between 15 July and 15 September for visits.
This historical catholic church was registered by the Cultural Heritage of Andorra as an asset of cultural interest. Inside you can see the original mural paintings which have been preserved from the late 12th century.
A decorative piece of art in the church, rather than a historic feature.
Baroque wooden features were later added inside the church when it was modified in the 17th century.
Booking this tour
We booked (via the tourist information office) with ‘Andorra Tourist Bus‘ who have a different itinerary every day of the week between 1st July to 15th September. We did ‘route 6’ which runs every Saturday.
Summary
Participating in such a group tour has advantages and disadvantages.
The good: cheaper than hiring a car, it was a budget friendly way of getting out of the capital and seeing some of the nearby towns and the spectacular mountainous scenery. You don’t need to do too much research as this is all done for you as you are taken to places of interest you wouldn’t necessarily know about. And you know exactly where you need to be without walking to the next town as you try to find a bus stop 😂
The value for money was also impressive. The entire trip was only €39 (£33.67) each which included all transfers in the bus, any entrance fees and the amazing lunch! The lunch alone was worth over £30 pp in my view.
The bad: you can’t choose for yourself how long to stay in each place, you are not independent and you have to follow the crowd and be back at the bus when you’re told.
The ugly: nothing was ugly today! Andorra is a beautiful clean and well managed country with lovely friendly people. No litter strewn around, no graffiti and no agressive drivers.
While generally I prefer to explore for myself rather than being part of a large group of tourists, the occasional bus tour such as this was easy and it was a great opportunity to have a deeper insight into this lovely country. I really enjoyed this day and would recommend the Andorra Tourist Bus.
Next up
We board an international bus to Toulouse, our third and final destination of this mini backpacking trip…
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