It is morning and we have breakfast on the terrace outside our 4th floor condo. We are high above the busy town of Escaldes-Engordany. The mountains that surround us are green and high. Across the valley, high above our spot, is a mountain condo project impossible to imagine. It hangs off a cliff 1000 feet above the valley; it seems no road could get there. 

In the center of the town is a high rise glass pyramid. We wonder is it the headquarters of the biggest bank in Andorra? It looks like the home of Batman’s worst enemy. It is the most egotistical architecture I have ever seen. It’s glass walls are supposed to reflect the mountain environment, I suspect. But it is mostly a joke, completely out of place, rising 10 stories above the highest building in the town center. 

There are few buildings in Escaldes-Engordany that are not 5 stories high. We look down on them because we are perched on a mountain side above the town center, our building also six stories high. We have quite a view over the town to the mountains. It is entertaining, but disappointing as we expected to be in a little ski town. 

We head for the car and start an uphill drive to get out of town on a well built but busy road. After a few miles of whizzing through tunnels and bridges, we come to Sispony and then Massana. We were hoping these were small mountain towns, but they are Vail Colorado. Massana has a ski gondola starting on the main street and feeding upward to the ski area known as Val Nord.

We park here and look for a restaurant. We find a nice one open uphill from the main drag. The daily menu is available at 2:30 p.m. and we settle in for a nice meal. Ana has French onion soup and a fish; I have tomato and mozzarella salad and a small steak with chimichuri. It is a pleasant enough respite. A couple sitting next to us is speaking a language Ana cannot identify. The waiter later tells us they were probably speaking Catalan and perhaps a little Spanish, as well. 

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We walk about the town and pick up some supplies at the local grocery. Then we head out again driving up hill to find some countryside. We wind upward until we enter a large tunnel. When we come out the other side, we are at a condo project high up the mountain. The road and tunnel have effectively lead to nowhere?

We head back down and find a road to the upper station of Val Nord. This is quite a spectacular drive winding steeply upward. Gates can close it off, probably if it is snowing. Still, it ends at the huge ski lodge and there is a good size parking lot. We shoot some photos of the amazing valley below and the the peaks that rise above. 

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Back in town, it is quitting time and the traffic very busy. We struggle to find the parking lot, not easily accessed due to the towns winding and one-way streets. We buy some food at a Mom and Pop grocery to cook in, as the pizza place is closed on Monday. Good restaurants in the center of town will be a very long walk back uphill after dinner. We are not eager to do that. Ana makes some veal steaks with small, sweet green peppers… Spanish style with some rice. We eat it overlooking the lights of the city. A helicopter leaves the top of the hospital to fly someone out of the mountains. Probably some crazy motorcyclist, who is about to donate his vital organs to others. We have encountered several, who screaming along the tight spiraling mountain roads, may have qualified for this today.