drives | Jason Around the World

Visiting Andorra and Catalonia

2017 Kazakhstan, Andorra, France, Spain 1 Response »

Jul 032017

We parked the car in front of our hotel, the A Casa Canut, where it was nice and simple to walk inside, hand the keys to the guy at the front desk, and he took it away to be parked for a very reasonable fee. The room I received was a bit on the strange side, in that it didn’t have a desk or anywhere to sit in the room. It was, however, considerably larger and less expensive than the previous time I had stayed here. I guess being there in June as opposed to August made a huge difference.

After dropping our things off, we headed out into the city of Andorra la Vella to walk around and explore. After grabbing a coffee at the new Starbucks, we came upon this bridge which required a photo. If there wasn’t going to be a passport stamp to document our visit to Andorra, a picture with this bridge would do:

Yes, I should have worn sunglasses…

Salvador Dali artwork near the bridge:

We continued our walk, taking in the sites of this quaint, yet very busy city nestled in the Pyrenees:

Looking out at the mountains:

All the walking had made us hungry, and it was already late afternoon, so retiring to a nice sunny square for some tapas and sangria seemed to be the logical thing to do:

Because octopus as a tapas in the middle of the mountains seemed so logical at the time…

We wandered for a couple more hours, and took part in some great duty free shopping deals, and ended up calling it a relatively early night so that we would be able to get up and enjoy the long drive back to Barcelona the next day the “long way.”

After getting up and grabbing some Starbucks for breakfast (since we weren’t hungry enough to pay 20+ euro each for the hotel buffet – even though I remember it being fantastic from the previous visit, we eventually checked out and headed out on our drive.

We had entered Andorra from the southern side which is the Spanish border, and would be heading out via the eastern French border. As with my previous trip to Andorra in 2014 the first stop would be Llívia, a small Spanish enclave completely surrounded by France. The route highlighted on the map below is the route that we took into Andorra from Spain.

We were planning to go out the east side on the yellow road you see, and head down the E9 highway to Llívia. On my previous trip I found this border of Andorra to be much, much more mountainous, and a very scenic drive. Views on the windy road leaving the city:

Snow-capped Pyrenees:

Unfortunately, since my previous visit, the big windy roads and switchbacks had been replaced with a giant toll tunnel, and we missed the turnoff to be able to take the windy road instead. Oh well, it made for a bit of a quicker driver, and given the fog and light drizzle it was definitely a safer drive as well.

Soon after entering France (where we couldn’t find anywhere to stop for a passport stamp either) we came to right back into the Spanish enclave of Llívia:

The strangest thing happened after we parked in Llívia and started to walk around: the entire town seemed completely empty and there was nobody at all on the streets. We tried three or four restaurants to get a late lunch, and not a single one of them was open. It was the strangest thing.

We eventually did find one small restaurant and hostel open for lunch, and it was a three course meal. The proprietor spoke no english or french at all, and even his Spanish was a bit challenging. It was starting to feel like real Catalonia, until this strange noodle dish showed up:

There wasn’t really anything more to see in Llívia since everything appeared closed, and we were well ahead of schedule to make it back to Barcelona in time for our evening flight, so I convinced Ian to go ahead and detour to Perpignan, France for an afternoon coffee. I think I just wanted to cross the Spanish, French, and Andorran borders as many times as I could in one day, but there were some super windy mountain roads on the way towards Perpignan:

Note how it winds all the way down into the valley:

Train trains for the Ligne de Cerdagne, otherwise known as the Train Jaune:

For perspective, leaning on a rock and you can see just how far of a drop is by how tiny the road right behind me looks in comparison:

Our good luck, we happened to be there right as the Train Jaune was passing over the bridge. Not a ride for those with a fear of heights!

We entered Perpignan, but had real trouble finding somewhere to park the rather large Mercedes on the small town streets. We eventually spied an underground carpark next to a square, and decided to head in. It was extremely narrow, and would have been much better-suited to a small car, but I did manage to park it and we headed back up to the square for a coffee.

The coffee was served complete with ashtray on the table, because…France. Also, the espresso was delicious, again, because…France! Unfortunately there were no crepes or other food to be had, because the kitchen was “on a break” and “who can say” when they will be back. Repeat with me….France!

After walking around I did manage to extract the car from the parking garage, and the highway back to Barcelona was in fantastic condition (and full of tolls) and we made it in just a couple hours, in plenty of time to catch our onward flight. It was time to get on island time now…

Sheraton Maui and three days on Maui

Attractions, Hawaii February 2014 2 Responses »

Feb 282014

Had no trouble finding the rental car shuttle from the commuter car terminal, and thanks to the fact we arrived at a different time from the mainland flights, there was no line to get the car. Thanks to the same website we were renting from Alamo again, and they tried to up-sell us from a “standard convertible” to a Camero for over $100 a day. Um, no thanks. When we got to the lot, we were extra thankful – the standard convertibles were Mustangs, which were just fine…although the choice was only black or white. We picked the white, and off we went.

The drive to our hotel, the Sheraton Maui in Lahaina, was about 30 minutes give or take, and soon we were there and valeted the car. The wait to check in was only a couple people, and soon it was time to play let’s make a deal…I mean check in. No, there were no rooms ready, but we’d been upgraded to a “standard ocean view” near the back of the property with two beds. I asked about a suite, and yes, we could have an Ohana suite near the back of the property with a “partial ocean view” but only with two beds again. I pressed, and she said there were also “deluxe ocean view suites, and let’s see if I can give you one.” She came back from the back room, and said unfortunately it would be an upcharge of $250 a night…but I can do it for $200. She could sense I was less than thrilled, and I asked if that was all she could do…then she offered it for $100 a night…given it was nearly 1,000 sq ft, a corner room with a view of the beach and ocean, I decided to go for it.

It would take about an hour to get the room ready, so she gave us a 35% off coupon for the poolside bar as well as welcome drink coupons, so we could grab lunch while we waited. Some tasty nachos were definitely on order, but we asked the waitress what she’d recommend. “Oh, you can get doubles FYI with those drink coupons…and I highly recommend the Old Fashioned Mai Tai.” I decided to give it a go….and drank nothing else for the next three days. Make with top shelf rum and shaved ice, it was absolutely delicious.

After about an hour I got a call that the room was ready, so we finished off our drinks and headed up to check in. Except, the line was now 30+ people deep, and when we tried to go to the platinum check-in line it nearly started a riot. The agent tried to explain to the people in line, but when they’ve been waiting on line for a long time, it’s understandable they were upset at the fact there were no more agents. They told us we could go around the corner to the valet to check-in, so we did.

It turned out not to work so well…he only could see the original upgrade, and not the suite we’d been waiting for. We had to come back two times, because he gave us keys to the wrong room. Nearly 45+ minutes later, however, we were finally to the room…with an amazing view:

The rest of the afternoon, we relaxed on the beach and just took it easy, enjoying the hotel and taking it easy. That evening, we met my friend Rita for dinner. I hadn’t seen Rita in over 20 years since she’d moved to Maui, and it was a real treat getting to catch up over some delicious beers at the Maui Brewing Company:

The next morning we got up fairly early, and after grabbing some Starbucks we headed out to drive the Road to Hana. It’s a nice drive on some pretty winding roads, and the frustration is you spend a good deal of time stuck behind people who might not live up to your driving skills.

Our first stop was at Twin Falls, maybe 30-40 minutes into the drive, where we were told the hike in to the falls was maybe 15-20 minutes. We stopped first at a small overlook:

Then, about ten minutes later, we were approaching the falls. The final part was maybe 50 meters or so through knee deep quite cold water, but it was gorgeous and refreshing: