Andorra is the 6th smallest country in Europe and its capital is Andorra la Vella, the European capital with the highest elevation. It’s a principality like Monaco, except that it’s headed by two co-princes: the bishop of Urgell, Catalonia, and the president of France. Even though it’s not part of the EU, it still maintains open borders (there’s no way to get there except by land) – so no extra passport stamp for us.

Its official language is Catalan. In fact, Catalan originated here and spread outward to Barcelona, the place more commonly known to speak Catalan. Initially, we thought Andorra was a Spanish-speaking country until we saw welcome signs at the border saying “benvinguts”. I don’t know Spanish, but I at least knew their word for it was “bienvenidos”, so I deduced that Andorra would be Catalan-speaking. There are other words like “obert” means “open”, and “xocolat” means “chocolate”. Even though Catalan is the official language, Spanish, French, and Portuguese is also prevalent. Luckily, I knew a tiny bit of Spanish, so getting around there wasn’t a huge struggle. I didn’t really know much about Andorra before going there – I figured I’d just be going to a new country.

The lady at the tourist info center was really nice and gave us free postcards. She also noted that Andorra doesn’t have its own postal service. The let the Spanish and French postal services set up shop there so people can send letters “locally” to these respecive countries. She also taught us how to say “thank you” in Catalan – “gracie-es”, as opposed to the Spanish “gracie-as”.

Afterward, we took a short break at a local chocolate shop and had some drinking chocolate. It was like being Aztec royalty. But it was very very rich – to the point it was difficult finishing the entire cup.

Because of all the mountains, there are a lot of hikes and viewpoints in the area. Even the city itself had a short 20 minute hike to get a view of the city. The city itself is very quiet, and hotels are everywhere – all there to handle thewinter skiiing/snowboarding traffic. Traffic must be bad in the winter – most of the roads in the country were single lane per direction.

We visited the viewpoint of Mirador Roc del Quer to see mountains in the day. Interestingly, even in the summer, there are no snowcaps on the mountain tops.

After visiting Andorra, we headed to Toulouse where we’d spend our last night before we returned home. We had only momentarily escaped the heat and humidity of southern France – it came roaring back when we reached Toulouse. We spent the night walking around town to see sights like the Pont Neuf (“new bridge”), which lights up at night. There’s also the beautiful and ornate city hall, which also lights up at night.

Dinner service was very slow – maybe it was just from the place we ate at, but it also fit the stereotypes we knew of southern French culture. We thought we could eat quickly and spend the rest of the time walking around, but we spent a good portion of time waiting for our food. We did get to try the Touloussian style cassoulet, but felt the one from Carcassonne to be better. The one from Carcassone had a richer duck flavour. We also got to try a chicken medallion with mushroom stuffing inside, which was really good. I still found the majority of the bread served in restaurants that we tried to be quite underwhelming – I could do better.

We had a great time here and am grateful that we got to explore more new places! It was great to get a broad view of the south of France but it was a shame we couldn’t stay longer.

Check here to see more photos of Andorra and Toulouse

The fortified city was almost demolished in the 19th century but after much protest by the locals, it was restored and now it is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

We happened to visit Carcassonne at the same time as the Carcassonne Game Festival – a Carcassonne board game themed festival. I had played the board game before, but I had no idea that it was connected to the actual medival city itself. People got to play the board game Carcassone inside the walled city of Carcassonne. How cool! There were other events like axe-throwing, archery, and bowling (using the little meeples as the pins)! If I was a kid, I would have definitely enjoyed it a lot.

There are paths to walk along the defensive walls of the city. Luckily by today the weather had cooled down compared to the previous days and it was actually comfortable walking outside.

As usual, the castle is built on top of a hill – it’s the best defensible position. But because of that, visitors have access to views down into the town.

The castle itself isn’t just a fortification, there’s also a city inside of it too. Mostly it’s souvenir stores and restaurants. From a local store owner, I learned that the animals in French don’t sound the same as in English – it makes a “quah quah” noise – the guy made what I thought to be a super strange noise at first as I walked by his store presumably to attract customers, and after giving him a super confused look, he explained what it was.

The storeowner was actually selling earthenware for cooking cassoulet, a local dish. The dish is said to have originated in the town of Castelnaudary, and is particularly popular in the neighbouring towns of Toulouse and Carcassonne. We got to try it at a place called Méli et Zéli. It’s a slow cooked stew with beans, sausages, and goose/duck confit. It’s super rich and heavy. The duck flavour is very apparent. I want to learn how to make this.

Next, we headed to the Châteaux de Lastours. They are the ruins of four castles sitting on top of a hill. We reached the base of the mountain, but we weren’t prepared to hike the whole thing, so instead we looked for a car road up to some sort of view point.

The road I could see go to the top was a single lane road and it wasn’t apparent whether or not it was a one-way, but after seeing another car go up, I decided to follow. I just hoped that there weren’t any cars coming the other way because it was either drive off a cliff or into the trees.

We found a wider part of the road and pulled over to get a good look. If we had more time, we would have hiked up there – it looked fun. I ended up going back town the same way, again hoping I didn’t encounter another car. Eventually I did, but luckily the speeds were slow, the road was bit wider at that point, and I was able to swerve enough just in time.

Check here to see more photos of Carcassonne