First published: 10/04/25.

Tony H.

The State Of The Pyrenees

The State of the Pyrenees (Part of Nomination)

I visited Andorra as a day trip from Barcelona in March 2025. The 7 hours I had in the country were enough to visit 2 of the locations of this TWHS, which compensated the fact that I couldn't visit the Madriu-Perafita-Claror valley WHS.

I first walked from Andorra La Vella to Santa Coloma, it's just a 30-minute walk, mostly along the river. On your way to Santa Coloma you get great views of the Roc d'Enclar, that is also part of this TWHS. The church of Sant Vicenç d'Enclar looks very picturesque on top of the rocky hill and against the mountains rising behind it. I have no clue how you can get on top of the Roc d'Enclar where the church is, it must require some serious hiking!

In Santa Coloma the TWHS site is the church of Santa Coloma (photo attached). To visit it you must go to the Espai Columba museum that is next to it. This is a very small and modern museum. Your entrance ticket includes an audio guide that first leads you through the museum and then to the church. The museum is essential to visit as all the medieval murals from the church are located now in the museum, not inside the church. The murals were taken from the church in 1932 and they've traveled all around the world until returning to Andorra in 2007. The museum has very nice design and the murals are located in a room that is a copy of the chapel inside the church. I was the only one visiting the museum so I had all the time and space to admire them. The size and the style of the murals reminded me a lot of my visit to Boyana Church in Bulgaria. There's not much else on the show in the museum and all the information signs were only in Catalan. After visiting the museum I walked over the road to see the actual church. There will be someone waiting for you to open the doors. Inside the church there are only very small murals left and the Baroque style altar that hid the original murals behind it for centuries. The staff member put on a multimedia show that showed the locations of the original murals and how colorful they originally were. This was very nice addition to the visit and very well executed! I thought the visit to the church and the museum was very worthwhile and I'd recommend it to anyone visiting Andorra.

After returning to Andorra La Vella I visited Casa de la Vall. This is the former parliament house of Andorra and before that it was a private residence of a wealthy family. The visit is for free and you're again provided an audio guide. The house was just mildly interesting, the most interesting parts being the meeting room for the parliament and the former court room. The parliament and the court have moved to the new modern building next door. The upper courtyard of Casa de la Vall was under renovation at the time of my visit and the whole building was about to shut down for renovations soon. There were no information signs inside the house so you need to rely on the audio guide here. The house was quite busy at the time of my visit, especially when a Chinese tour group rushed through it. The highest floor had an art exhibition on show.

At the entrance of Casa de la Vall they had information sign about the TWHS, showing all the components in Andorra, France and Spain. According to that sign "the twelve elements of this series bear witness, over more than a thousand years of history, to a cultural and political tradition without parallel in the world. The Principality of Andorra is the only mountain valley organisation in Europe to have survived from the Middle Ages to the present day, preserving its particularities, such as the co-lordship which was redefined as a co-principality by the 1993 Constitution." Is this enough to warrant a WH status? I'm not sure. I really did enjoy my visit and the audio guidance in both sites did bring out the unique aspects of these sites and of the whole Andorra but I wasn't wow-ed by anything. Just 2 small curious sites for me.

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