5 Days in Andorra

The Soldeu sector sits in the middle of the ski area, with wide slopes and some of its steepest descents. It's also where Andorra gets its racing credentials: the Avet slope hosted the World Cup finals in 2019 and 2023 and the Europa Cup finals in 2022. In March 2027 the women's World Cup giant slalom and slalom return here.

How to ski it depends on who you are. Beginners and anyone rusty should stay on the green and blue areas marked on the resort map and book a 3-hour group lesson: the resort says a few lessons are enough to get down green and blue runs. Good skiers should warm up on the reds and then try Avet itself early. It's a race slope, and race slopes are prepared hard.

Ski over to El Tarter, the sector one village down the valley. It was the other half of the 2019 World Cup finals, on the Àliga slope, which got FIS approval as a downhill in 2013 and was used again in 2023. The sector has runs for all levels, freeride areas and a children's circuit called Bababoom Circus.

Intermediates will get the most from it. The snowpark with what the resort calls the longest line of modules in the Pyrenees is here too. First-timers should stay on the beginner areas and ask at the lift which way down suits their level.

Grandvalira runs around 60 places to eat on the mountain, from self-service to table service, and in Soldeu the resort points to two: the Wine & Meat Bar by Jean Leon and the Clicquot Snow Club terrace. Both are on the slope side, so you ski to the door.

Go for a sit-down meal rather than the canteen if you have the time. A plate of cured meats or an escudella, the winter stew that is Andorra's national dish, is the order that suits a cold day. If you only have 45 minutes, the self-service restaurants are faster.

Even if you never plan to jump, the park is worth a stop. It's one of three snowparks in Grandvalira (the others are at Grau Roig and Peretol), and the El Tarter one has the longest line of modules in the Pyrenees, the resort says. Standing at the side to watch riders hit the line is free.

Don't ride it unless you already know how to land. The park has its own opening dates and times, so check them first, and the separate snowpark pass is 26 EUR for the Henrik Harlaut park.

L'Abarset in El Tarter is the après-ski the resort itself puts first. From 4 pm it runs a terrace party with DJs until about 9 pm, and on selected Fridays and Saturdays an "L'After" club night with dancing until 2 am. It has hosted a long list of house and electronic DJs, so this is not an accordion-and-mulled-wine affair.

It's loud and social. If you want a quieter evening, go for an hour after the lifts close and then eat in Soldeu. The venue opens Sunday to Friday from 4 to 9 pm, until 10 pm on days with promoter events.

Soldeu's restaurants cater to the tourist trade, so the choice runs from international food to mountain cooking. The local food is Catalan mountain food, hearty and meaty, and one of the most popular dishes is a blood sausage with white beans, a plate that tastes of the valley and not of the hotel buffet.

Ask for trinxat (the cabbage, potato and bacon cake) as a side or main.

Grau Roig is the wild corner of the ski area, and the resort calls its views some of the most spectacular in the whole of Andorra. It has runs of all levels, three free Kids Forest circuits for children, freeride and ski touring areas, and the Riberal slope, the only approved Speed Skiing slope on the Iberian Peninsula and the permanent home of the Speed Skiing World Cup.

You won't ski Riberal at world-record speed, but you can see it, and the sector has runs of every level to ski. Good skiers can try the freeride areas, which are marked on the resort map and best explored with a guide or a class, since the resort offers specialist lessons for the basics of off-piste.

Grau Roig is also the adventure sector: the Grandvalira Mountain Park offers dog sleds, snowshoeing and snowmobile trips, and the resort lists more than 20 adventure activities across the whole ski area. The Mountain Pass covers the snowshoeing and ski touring areas, so a non-skier in your group has a way onto the mountain.

It suits a half-day off skis.

The Refugi Llac dels Pessons is the mountain restaurant the resort itself calls legendary, and it sits by the Pessons lake in Grau Roig.

Order something warm: the resort's restaurants serve traditional dishes, and escudella is the one that suits a cold day best. Allow time, because this is the stop of the day, not a fuel break.

Pas de la Casa is the oldest sector in Grandvalira: the first rope tow here went up in 1956, powered by a lorry engine. The sector has slopes at every level, a snow garden for children, and the town on the French border at its foot.

Ski the runs on the Grau Roig side, then drop into town: the sectors are all connected on skis, so there is no need to take a lift down. Families will find the Forest Pas children's circuit, and good skiers can use the afternoon for the sector's reds and blacks.

Pas de la Casa is a shopping stop as much as a ski stop. The tourism board lists shopping centres, perfumeries and sports stores here and calls the town one of the best areas in Andorra for shopping.

Be factual about what you gain. You can bring home a limited amount without paying duty when you return to the EU, per adult: 1.5 liters of spirits above 22% (or 3 liters of weaker spirits or sparkling wine) plus 5 liters of table wine, 300 cigarettes, and up to 900 EUR of other goods. These limits apply per person and cannot be pooled between travelers, and the Andorran, Spanish and French customs offices are open round the clock. Check a price at home before you buy.

The Tubs slope in Pas de la Casa is lit at night, with the La Solana chairlift open for access, and it is open to every level. The night pass is 28.50 EUR from the Pas de la Casa ticket offices or ticket machines, and every day, multi-day and season pass except the pedestrian pass works on it. Whether it runs depends on weather and snow in 2026/27.

After it, the town offers what the resort calls the liveliest nightlife in Grandvalira, with pubs and big parties.

The Funicamp is the gondola that makes Encamp a ski base: 6 km long, one of the longest in Europe, and it connects the village with Solanelles at about 2,500 meters in just 15 minutes, the resort says. It is the first entry to Grandvalira from Spain and the closest to Andorra la Vella and Escaldes-Engordany.

From the top there is one of the best panoramic views across the whole territory. If you drive, park free in one of the four public car parks in the town centre and take the free Funibus to the gondola; if you're staying in the parish, the free Encamp bus goes to the Funicamp.

From Solanelles you ski towards Peretol, the newest of the seven sectors, which opened in the 2019-20 season at 1,960 meters in Bordes d'Envalira. Its Pla de les Pedres chairlift was extended to become the longest in Andorra, and the sector has a snowpark, one of the three in Grandvalira, with a night freestyle area.

The Peretol entrance has limited parking, so the resort runs a free shuttle for guests staying in Bordes d'Envalira, about every 20 minutes between 9:00 and 17:00. Because the sectors are linked, you can ski between Encamp, Peretol and the rest of the area all day.

At the top of the Funicamp, at Solanelles, the resort lists its own restaurant for the Encamp sector. Solanelles sits at about 2,500 meters, where the resort says there are plenty of services and the best panoramic view across the territory.

Keep it light, since you still have the afternoon runs: order embotits, the cured pork meats and sausages of the Pyrenees, with bread.

Canillo is the sector for families and first-timers: easy slopes where you can have a first contact with snow, reached by a cable car that carries up to eight people from the town to the Forn valley. The family park here is Mon(t) Magic, which the resort says has the longest themed children's slope in southern Europe, built around the legends of Andorra.

With children, make it the last run of the day.

On the way out of Canillo towards France stands the church of Sant Joan de Caselles, built in the 11th and 12th centuries and still the clearest picture of a Romanesque church in Andorra: a rectangular nave with a wooden roof, a semicircular apse and a Lombard-style bell tower, with two porches probably added in the 16th and 17th centuries.

Inside, look for the remains of a 12th-century Romanesque Majesty in stucco, surrounded by a painted crucifixion scene, and the 16th-century altarpiece with scenes from the life of St. John. It is a bonus rather than a sure thing: the church is not open on demand and no winter visiting hours are published, so check the calendar at museus.ad first.

Finish the day with the dish the day deserves. Escudella is the winter stew of beef, sausage, vegetables, noodles, rice and chickpeas that the tourism board calls one of the most requested traditional dishes, and carn d'olla is the meat that comes from the broth. In Encamp the church of Santa Eulàlia, with the tallest Lombard-style Romanesque tower in the country at 23 meters, stands in the town centre.

Look for the word borda on the sign: old mountain barns turned into restaurants, where the meat is cooked over a wood fire.

Start in Santa Coloma, south of the centre. The church there, pre-Romanesque in origin and built between the 13th and 14th centuries, has a round bell tower almost 18 meters high, and inside the apse a six-minute video mapping projection shows how its murals were painted in the 12th century. Next door, Espai Columba keeps the original paintings from Santa Coloma and fragments from the church of Sant Esteve, including the Kiss of Judas and the Flagellation of Christ.

Take the audioguide, available in English, or book a guided tour for a 1.50 EUR supplement. Museum and church are one joint visit, and hours can change for services.

The Casa de la Vall was built in the late 16th century as a manor house for the Busquets family. In 1702 the Consell General, the parliament of Andorra, bought it, and it served as the parliament until 2011. Inside you can see the Criminal Court with its wooden fittings, the Hall of Lost Steps with 16th-century wall paintings and the Cabinet of Seven Keys.

Just beside it stands the church of Sant Esteve, with a 13th-century semicircular apse that is the largest in Andorra. Visit them together: they're a stone's throw apart, in the old town above the river Valira. A guided tour must be booked in advance, and the building is not suited to people with reduced mobility.

The Celler d'en Toni is one of the country's most historic restaurants, open since the 1960s, and it earned a Michelin Bib Gourmand listing in 2021 and 2022, the first in the principality. It mixes traditional Andorran flavors with newer ideas, cooks seasonal local meat and fresh fish, and has an open kitchen and a cellar of more than 12,000 references.

This is where you order the local things properly: escudella, trinxat de muntanya or the game of the season. For a simpler meal, bars in the old town serve a fixed menu of the day.

Andorra's shopping is the other half of its reputation, and the place to see it is the Shopping Mile: a 1.5 km shopping street made up of Avinguda Meritxell and the Fener Boulevard in Andorra la Vella and Avinguda Carlemany in Escaldes-Engordany. The country has more than a thousand shops, and the tourism board says shops close on only four days a year, among them 1 January and 25 December.

Be factual about the savings: Andorra isn't in the EU, so you face customs limits when you return, and the goods people cross the border for are spirits, tobacco, perfume and electronics. The malls, such as Illa Carlemany on Avinguda Carlemany, are a warm place to browse in bad weather.

Caldea in Escaldes-Engordany is billed as the biggest thermal spa in southern Europe, and its glass spire is easy to spot. The water comes up from the town's springs at 65-70 degrees C, then is filtered and cooled to 34-37 degrees C for the lagoons.

There are three passes: Classic (over 5, three hours, with the indoor and outdoor lagoons, Nordic sauna, hammam and Indo-Roman baths), Plus (over 12, adding the Arabian, Aztec and lemon baths and the solarium), and Premium (over 16, with bathrobe, slippers and workshops). A three-hour soak is the reason to come: the resort board's own pitch is thermal water while it snows.

The old town around the Casa de la Vall is the best place for a traditional dinner. Look for the bars and restaurants that serve a fixed menu of the day and, in winter, escudella. The tourism board lists game stews, Andorran-style cannelloni and river trout among the dishes to try.

After dinner, walk to the river Valira in Escaldes-Engordany, where the outdoor art project Caldes lines the riverside promenade with brightly painted monumental taps and pipes, a nod to the town's thermal water.

The easiest way in is the La Massana gondola, which starts in the village only 6 km from the centre of the country. It was built in 2004, takes 16 people per cabin, climbs 675 meters over 2,250 meters of line, and is open nearly all year round. In winter it carries you to the Pal sector, in summer it carries mountain bikes up to the bike park.

If you're staying near Arinsal, the second gondola there, opened in 1997, starts next to most of the hotels and goes up to the Arinsal sector. Whichever you pick, you ski the same pass.

Pal Arinsal has 47 runs and more than 63 km of slopes: 7 green, 19 blue, 17 red and 4 black. A cable car for more than 50 people, from Coll de la Botella in Pal to Port Negre in Arinsal, lets you swap sectors. The resort calls itself the most family-friendly ski area in the Pyrenees, and the numbers fit: 26 of the 47 runs are green or blue.

Good skiers will find 17 red runs to fill the day, but only 4 black ones, so this is the day for a relaxed session, not a steep one. If you want steeper and higher, swap it for Ordino Arcalís.

Pal Arinsal lists its own mountain restaurants on the resort site, so there is no need to go back down for lunch. Pick one on the sector you are skiing and keep it simple: a plate of cured meats, a soup and a coffee.

Then ski the afternoon and be back at the gondola before the lifts close at 17:00.

Arinsal is the mountain village at the foot of the valley, where the Arinsal gondola starts next to most of the hotels. It is a simple place to end the ski week with a drink before the bus.

From here bus L5 takes you back to Andorra la Vella.