Day 66 - Monday 8 July - Andorra

Monday 8 July

This is a * * hotel, with few facilities, so we used up all the left-overs we'd lugged with us from Barc, had our own breakfast in our room.

Yesterday we found out that the tourist office has a morning bus tour, a different route each day of the week, so we got tickets, and today at 9:00 were waiting for the Monday big bus with 3 others. (I probably would have preferred most of the other routes to Monday's but that's life.)  First stop, the basilica of Our Lady of Meritxell - the patron saint of Andorra. Her wooden statue was found in C12, and maybe she hasn't done any miracles so isn't a saint.   But she and her church were burned down in 1972, and after about 20yrs a new one was built, and they have a national holiday to celebrate.

 The ancient chapel, with a new facade, roof and internal fixtures.

 The open cloister of the new church, which is used for performances and exhibitions.

 The new "Our Lady",  who is not amused.

Inside the closed cloister was an exhibition of models of all of the C12 chapels in Andorra - about 10, which were very cute.

St Colomba's

Next stop was the church of St John de Caselles, which has part of a C12 stucco figure of Christ, 

then St Michael's, another C12.  It's original fresco was removed and is in Barcelona.   From there we had a great view of the city in the valley.

Then we went higher up the mountain to Lake Engolaster, the only man-made lake (over 70 natural), which is part of their hydro scheme. We walked through the forest where there were art installations.
 

We got back to town in time for a lunch and a thunderstorm, then rested. Went out for another walk, and met another brief storm.