Andorra

Part 3: Andorra!

I had never heard of Andorra until about a week before we left for Spain. It's a beautiful, very small country between France & Spain. It started as a city atop the Pyrenees mountains. At different points in history both France and Spain have tried to conquer it, but due to its awesome mountain top location, this was not possible for either country. So they gave up and said "Be your own country." And a tax free country they became. They are best known for skiing and duty free shopping. 

Here's just a few of my favorite pictures of Andorra.

Please note the goats/cows/sheep that are roaming free throughout the mountains.

Here's a video of my dessert at our dinner the 1st night of camping in Andorra. (Our campsite had a sit down restaurant, so much for "roughing" it.) Anyone seen the movie Amelie? In the movie, Amelie lists her favorite things and one of them is cracking Creme Brulee. So this is for my roomie, who loves the movie.

Camping in Europe has a bunch of luxuries that I never would have dreamed of in America.

We ate in a restaurant, had showers, laundry facility, grocery store, and duty free shopping!

Here's a tour of some of the other amenities our campsite had....

(Oh, and I figured out what that sign in the video meant, its for the people 

who bring their own camper vans and have to dispose of chemical waste.)

I love camping in Europe! Seriously, one of our other friends went camping for 2 weeks in 

France and had a mini fridge in his tent, I think maybe even a bed? All that was missing 

were the walls.

One last picture, we got stuck in the most annoying traffic jam when we went to the top

of the mountains. There was really only one road leading down the mountain and through

the center of town, this means that whenever someone slowed down to make a turn off

the main road, it slowed down traffic, pretty much for the entire country. We sat in traffic,

and when I get bored I take pictures...

If you didn't read the Barcelona blog, go back one entry and you can find pictures 

for Toulouse, Carcassonne, Barcelona & Andorra.

I'm pretty sure the next blog is going to be about something pretty fantastic! So stay tuned...

3 part blog: Part 1 Toulouse & Carcassonne

The next 3 blogs or so are going to be related to each other. Eric and I took a 6 day trip that took us through Toulouse France, Carcassonne France, Barcelona Spain, Andorra & back to Limoges France. 

The first blog will be about Toulouse & Carcassonne. This map will give you a quick overview of how the trip went down. It was about 14 hours of driving round trip. The three countries involved are France, Spain, and Andorra.

I think I have said this before but the number one thing I've noticed about the 

South of France is Sunflowers.

Europe is pretty far ahead of us on the whole "green energy" thing. 

Nothing like a good wind farm on a clear day.

We stopped in Toulouse for a little bit on our way to Carcassonne. Overall, we didn't find too much to do in Toulouse. 

This is the first thing we saw in Toulouse: Dangerous little toys for kids.

We visited a pretty massive toy store and marveled at a few of our favorite games that had been french-ified. I will post pictures from the whole trip, including this toy store, in a later blog.

Now we don't have this game in America, but we should. 

We ran across these entrepreneurs in Toulouse. There were about 14 children and a few adults staring mesmerized at this display of ingenuity. I just have to say it makes me physically ill that people earn money doing this:

Somewhere between Toulouse and Carcassonne we stopped to pick tons of blackberries and let me take pictures of random things I thought were interesting, such as these snail trees, I've always wondered where snails come from.

And grapes, grapes, GRAPES!

Before I move on to Carcassonne, I just wanted to mention a few things I learned about

Toulouse. Toulouse is famous for producing violet. We even got to eat violet ice cream.

Sadly it was white in color and not purple. It was pretty tasty, it did not taste like soap 

as I had thought it would.

Secondly, I would love to tell you about the zodiac symbols and how they started in Toulouse, 

but that would be a lie, just like the lie my brother told me right before I took this picture.

I was excited to have my picture taken with my symbol because Eric told me it started here. 

Eric was of course lying and it took me way too long to figure it out.

We finally arrive in Carcassonne. Eric had one goal in mind: See a medieval knight show. I think this was mostly to show up our friend Tobias. Eric and Tobias once went to great lengths to go see a medieval reenactment and it turned out to be 4 middle age guys sword fighting each other. And they had to pay to watch. 

We didn't get a video of the jousting stick/thingy exploding as they hit each other, 

but here ya go.

This is the best picture of the castle/fortified city that I can show you. I had to snap it as we were driving away. It was hectic traffic and we couldn't turn around due to the frustration of driving a manual car and an entire continent that loves round-abouts.

Finally we arrive to our awesome camp ground. 

Listen at the beginning of the video for some familiar music.

Next stop is Barcelona!