Mountains and Music.

After our late night at the festival we had a leisurely start to the next morning with breakfast in the hotel. Beside the obligatory breakfast juices stood a large tub with bottles of water chilling in it and beside that was another tub with red wine (possibly Sangria) chilling. If this is breakfast in Andorra I may have to move here!
There are a limited number of roads to take from Andorra la Vella- one from the north east (which we had taken from France to the town), one south (leading to Spain) and one to the northwest which leads...up into the mountains! The latter was our chosen route for the day. After a bit of a mix up getting out of la Vella (our sat nav didn't know the one-way system) we were on our way through beautiful little villages and up a wiggley road. The roads are very good in Andorra - a lot of money has been spent on infrastructure projects - but I did get the feeling that someone had slipped the Etch-a-Sketch road planner some good drugs while at the design stage. On the map from the tourist office parts of the road looked like a grey blob that eventually tailed off with a relatively straight bit.
At the end of the road were some spectacular views and the first snow we had stood on this year (it's been a mild winter back home). There was the possibility of a walk further around the mountain to the Tristaina lakes but we decided our priority was food not hiking at that point in time so we began our descent to a little auberge which advertised itself as having 'possibly the best menu in the country'. I don't know if it was the best but it was certainly hearty - and not for vegetarians! It was meat, meat and large chunks of meat. I had the 'local' soup to start which was ostensibly cabbage based but included sausage, black pudding, bacon and extra bacon. We both had suckling pig for our main course which was served trotters and all!
Sunday night at the festival had Maceo Parker and UB40 on the bill. Again, after some free rioja we had a great show standing very close to the stage. Maceo funked it up wonderfully and UB40 were very well received by the local crowd and played till 1.00am, ending with a great version of Red, Red Wine.
Our late night meant another leisurely morning the following day before check out and heading towards Sant Julia de Loria near the Spanish border. At Sant Julia there are two routes into the mountains, east or west. We had decided to go west but a sat nav error took us east and once decided on a route it is not easy to find a place to turn the car around. I said the roads were good; I didn't say they were wide!
Have I said I have a fear of heights? These roads were narrower than the roads in the north and even more precipitous. Hairpin bends with steep inclines on each corner had me clutching what Baby Bomber calls The Jesus Handle - the handgrgip on the car door that I hold in a vice like grip while squeaking 'Jeeessssuuus!' Nevertheless, we made it to the top where there was a medieval 'sanctuary'. It was closed! Andorrans don't seem to get the concept of having open churches.
The top of the mountain had spectacular views and we also noticed that, although it was a circular route on the map, Andorra's road's department either ran out of money or the will to continue at this point and hadn't bothered to tarmac the descending road. When I say they hadn't tarmacked I mean that some of it was barely tyre marks on either side of rocks. Sean gleefully announced that he had always wanted to try off-road driving. I did point out that for off-road driving you needed and off-road car and the one we had was not such a vehicle. It also had a large excess on the insurance from the hire company! The Jesus Handle was well used.