Southwest France is very rural and feels different than the rest of France. This is going to seem like blasphemy to a lot of people, but I like it better than Provence so far. It’s less dry, the villages are golden instead of grey, and the people are even friendlier (IMHO). Andorra was uniquely modern with just a few old buildings and not surprisingly, very mountainous. Andorra seemed wealthy, efficient, and international with Catalan, Spanish, and France widely spoken.
The Cite (AKA the walled part of the city) has cool rings made by cleaning the stones. It looks cooler at night. Some of the largest fortifications I’ve ever seen. Completely surrounding the small town at the top of the hillThe aqueduct for Nimes, a large Roman cityIt’s massive and ran over 30 miles. Roman engineers are my heroesGlassware from 2000 years ago. Non-romans were using skins or cupped handsOn our way to Carcassonne, we stopped at Pont du Gard where a Roman aqueduct-bridge crosses the river Gardon. So impressive!Carcassonne was beautifuland very very castley. Towers galore! 53 of them!With a cute touristy town within the wall and a normal town outside the wallsCarcassonne was a very medieval city. It is so well preserved, it looks fake. The walled part is touristy but nice. The outer town was a normal French townMostly Andorra looks similar to this…reallyAndorra La Vella was very modern and clean 16th century Casa de la Vall housed parliament until 2011Andorra was our final “little 5” European micro-country. It is the largest but sill has less than 80,000 residents and is about four times the size of San Francisco. We are talking small!
