Andorra

Andorra is a tiny, independent principality situated between France and Spain in the Pyrenees mountains. While most people visit Andorra in the winter to ski, I visited for 1 day in the summer to hike. If you’re interested in hiking, I would strongly suggest going to Ordino Arcalís and doing the hike to the Tristaina Solar viewpoint, which gives an amazing view of the lakes of Tristaina. Note the following:

• There is a hiking trail map but we found that the routes were not very accurate, so we used All Trails to navigate instead.
• The hike is rated hard on All Trails and reasonably so. We found the hike to be difficult but worth it.
• If you don’t want to do the entire hike, you can do a portion of it by taking the gondola to the Restaurant de la Coma, and beginning the hike there. Or, you can take the gondola to the Restaurant de la Coma,and then get on the Creussans chairlift, which will take you very close to the peak of Peyreguils, where the Tristaina Solar viewpoint is located. Note that if you want to take the gondola and the chairlift, you need to purchase a ticket that specifies both.
  • We hiked from the restaurant to the viewpoint and it took us ~1.5 hours to get up and ~30 minutes to get down.
  • If you have time to eat, the food at Restaurant de la Coma is pretty good.
• More information can be found here: https://ww1.ordinoarcalis.com/en/sundial-lookout

Background photo taken at the top of the Creussans chairlift.