Woke up to a nice day, -1c outside. Got ready and went for a walk and a Starbucks, then to buy a watch I saw yesterday. I’ve been looking at a watch for a while and we found a shop that has a similar one, same brand, at 40% off so it is worth getting. If Australian customs are reading this, I didn’t buy it.
Bought a backpack and a bag for Song, our backpack was a bit small. Stuff is pretty cheap here. I think cigarettes are cheap as well because a lot of people smoke.
Wandered around, then back to the hotel to repack and walk to the bus station. It was actually quite warm in the sun and we had to stop on the way to take the coats off.
The bus was the same as yesterday, a Mercedes minibus but new and comfortable. The drive was only 2.5 hours and not as twisty as yesterday.
The border crossing from Andorra to Spain was slow for some reason, a long queue but when we got there we were waved through.
The road wasn’t as high as yesterday, I think Andorra Da Vella, where we were, is in the lower part of the Pyrenees, we didn’t drive through mountains but gorges between large tree covered hills. It wasn’t as cold either, at one stage the bus showed outside was 22c.
The drive was unexpectedly lovely – we drove through wide valleys alongside rivers and lakes surrounded by steep granite hills, the occasional small village perched on top of a small hill.
Got to the station with just over an hour to our train, the bus station was outside the train station, and after all the running around at previous stations decided to sit in the station cafe and wait. We still had food from yesterday so found a table at the back and ate that.
The train journey was a bit dull so I just watched some TV. The Spanish train wasn’t as nice as the French, Swiss or even the Italian ones – a bit old, seats not very comfortable and no power points or wifi.
The weather got bad as we went north, and the temperature dropped to 8c. There were also a lot of wind farms in Spain. The train was pretty slow, a bit annoying, and looking at the map I noticed we branched off to the East to stop at other places instead of going direct. This is the last long travel day, we have 3 nights in San Sebastián so we can take it easy, then we hop to France and do short trips between French towns.
Got to the hotel and I think we were the oldest people ever to stay. It’s called “The Social Hub” and there were lots of young people around and the whole place was very trendy. I tried to fit in by saying “OMG!” and “like” as much as I could. I’m sure they thought I was cool.
That was the end of our long journey days and also the micro countries of Europe. Liechtenstein was a dud; the most prominent sight was the castle on the hill which you couldn’t go into and the high street which was about 100 metres long. San Marino was really good, the views from the top across the Italian countryside were spectacular. Andorra was also well worth the visit, the drive up through the mountains, although cloudy, often revealed snow topped mountains and towns in valleys. The main shopping street in the capital was quite buzzy (as long as you ignored the smokers). Song organised the route which allowed us to visit The Matterhorn, the Glacier Express, and all the tiny countries in a loop. The only problem was the short train interchanges which caused frantic running up and down stairs and a bruised knee (Song) and anxiety (me), but they are behind us now.
Tomorrow we wander the streets of San Sebastian and eat tapas (called Pintxos here).