9/14/14
Barcelona, Spain
In many ways, this has been one of the least enjoyable trips of my
life. “Have fun!” they say before I
leave. “Enjoy yourself,” they tell
me. They do not know me. They do not understand why I travel. For me, my idea of fun is riding my bike full
speed down the hill from 41st to 42nd Street in that
little passage on Park Avenue where the construction is occurring. For me, fun is discussing philosophy with
Ryan and Emily after class. For me, fun
is getting toasted with my brother. For
me, fun is having lunch with an old friend who can still make me laugh. Fun is not racing from one famous, historic
site to another. Fun is not walking
through the streets of Andorra la Vella.
Fun is not smoking a cigar inside a medieval castle. If I wanted to have fun, I would have stayed
in the city. When I set out to see the
world, I did not do it because it was fun.
Yes, it would be fun to do it, fun to plan the trips, fun to have done
it, but, the doing it, no. Enjoyment is
a little trickier. In order for me to
enjoy something, I need to be in the right mindset. If I am exhausted, tired, hungry, stressed,
or upset, I will not enjoy the activity.
This trip, I was all five.
The
only part of the trip that I really enjoyed were my two dinners, being too
toasted to care about anything last night, and finally be relaxed, awake, fed,
and relatively happy tonight. I also
enjoyed my walk around Andorra la Vella.
The rest of the trip was about fulfillment value. It was fulfilling to say, “Andorra Complete.” It was fulfilling to see the 1992
Stadium. It was fulfilling to visit
every WHS in Catalonia in one day. It
just was not enjoyable. Smoking this
pipe, in Barcelona, writing my entry, celebrating a successful trip, that is
enjoyable. I just don’t care about
anything else, save one thing that would be beyond the scope of this Travelogue to
mention. Actually, that’s not true. The scope is what I make it. There are just some thoughts I don’t want to
share with the whole world. No, what I
want to share with the whole world is the similarities between Andorra la Vella
and the Vale from Game of Thrones. I
passed out mamash toasted last night after an extended phone conversation with
my brother and his fiancée. It was past
3 AM my time. The idea of the 7 AM hike
seemed to be lost. It would set
everything back by 1:30 to do it that way, but I needed to sleep in. Of course, I woke up at 7 AM, and I could
have done the hike. I was just too upset
and wanted to go back to bed.
It was 9:40
AM by the time I got out of bed, and I rushed down to breakfast, which was
rather disappointing. My plan was quite
simple, walk to the cigar shop, buy a box or three, light one up, get some
souvenirs, take a picture at Parliament, come back to the hotel, and head to
the WHS to do some hiking. I would only
be an hour behind schedule, and I knew that I could make that time up out of
Carcassonne in the end. I had budgeted
2:30 there. If not, there was no harm in
showing up at my hotel in Barcelona at 10 PM.
Reader, if you have ever been on a cruise or the cruise port on a
Caribbean island, you know how they have a large collection of duty-free shops
and souvenir shops. Now, imagine
Luxembourg or Vaduz or any other small, charming, old European city that is
built into a mountain or cliff. Imagine
that that city is just one giant cruise port with nothing but duty-free and
souvenir shops. Reader, do you have that
image in your mind? That is exactly what
the old city of Andorra la Vella was.
As
soon as I got out of my hotel, not five minutes later, I got to a duty-free
shop as big as any I had ever seen. They
had a huge selection of cigars, good ones, at better prices than I had ever
scene. My mother had said she would give
me a box of Montecristo No. 4 for my birthday, the same present I got last
year, so I picked up a box of those along with two boxes of Andorra Exclusivo
(Ramon Allones and Juan Lopez), and about ten singles. That was 85 cigars, all really good ones, for
about the same the price as the 37 cigars I bought in Vancouver, and these
cigars were better. I lit up a Ramon
Allones as soon as I walked out of the store.
I started walking towards Parliament, and I asked where to find souvenir
shops. Either there was a huge language
barrier, or the local shopkeepers just never noticed the half-dozen souvenir
shops on the main street on the way to Parliament. Souvenir shops are like women. There are plenty of great ones out there,
but, once you find that one perfect one, the one that can give you everything
you need, you are just wasting your time looking at other ones.
I had no desire to do my usual thing and got
a big bag of miscellaneous crap to give away as presents. Instead, I handpicked gifts for the people in
my life about whom I actually cared and didn’t bother getting random stuff for
my friends at the cigar store. This was
actually hard. I barely know Emily and
Ryan. What do I know about them? Well, Emily likes to drink beer and Ryan
likes to smoke. Ah, there was an Andorran
beer stein and an Andorran ashtray. Sokol
and I always joke about unofficial Us, and they had a magnet of a guy taking an
unofficial U (Category I, PS). I
continued perusing the store and handpicking gifts for other people. I got a pin, two keychains, and a t-shirt for
myself. That was all I needed. As soon as I got to Parliament, I immediately
thought that I was in the Eyrie. All
that was missing was the Moon Door and the Knights of the Vale. I took my pictures and headed back to the
hotel. I have a great sense of
direction, and I knew that I would have no trouble finding my way back. I was right.
I still had plenty of cigar left.
In fact, the cigar lasted while I checked out, headed to the WHS,
getting gas on the way, and about half of the hike. Andorra’s lone WHS, Madriu-Perafita-Claror
Valley may very well have the honor of being the least accessible in
continental Western Europe. In addition
to being in the middle of nowhere, you have to hike at least 30 minutes from
the nearest road to get inside the WHS proper.
It is a beautiful, scenic mountain valley, but it is inscribed as a
cultural site, based on the way that people have used the mountainside over
generations. It’s about the way people
have utilized land management, not about the land itself. Go figure.
Anyway, I had thought that it was a mixed, which meant that it would
need an Official U. As I’m sure my
readers know, a Natural (or Mixed) WHS requires an Official U to make it
official. Without that Official U, I
would be unable to say “Andorra Complete.”
I parked the car, grabbed some cigars for the hike, knowing that I would
want the Andorra Exclusivo Juan Lopez to be the official WHS cigar, but I took
an extra one in case I finished it before I got back. I had budget 1:30 for the hike, but the
timeline is hazy. I’m not sure if I was
right on target or if I went 20 minutes over.
I knew that Coll Jovell was inside the WHS, and it said that it was a
35-minute walk there. Perfect. The walk was as harrowing as it was
beautiful, and I was completely spent after 35 minutes, or maybe 55
minutes. I eventually got to a sign
post, and I assumed that this was Coll Jovell.
The distance to FontVerd was now at 1:10 instead of 1:40 from the
beginning, so it meant Coll Jovell was either there or within 5 minutes. The sign post didn’t say anything, and it was
nowhere in sight. To continue towards
Fontverd was down a steep, rocky path, and I didn’t want to repurchase any more
altitude than was strictly necessary to make it official. Once I found a scenic spot to take my Official
U, I lit up my Juan Lopez, took the U, called it Official, announced, “Andorra
Complete,” and my made my way back to the car, ditching the tiny cigar at the
parking lot. On the way, I realized that
my watch was 20 minutes slow, and I could not recall if I had been using my
phone or watch as a guide, so I had no idea how much time I spent there. It didn’t matter.
It was 1:40 PM, and Carcassonne was three
hours away. I could have 1:30 at Carcassonne
and be right on target. I entered Cite
de Carcassonne into my GPS.
Problem. It was showing as 3:20,
which meant a 5 PM arrival time. What if
the castle closed at 5 PM? I knew that I
could make up some time on the road, but I wasn’t sure how much time. I knew that I had looked up the closing time
for Carcassonne, so I would not have originally planned to be at Carcassonne
from 3:30 PM to 6 PM if it closed at 5 PM.
I knew this would be the one WHS of the whole trip that I would enjoy
the most, so would I really have to Lavaux it and just take a picture
outside? I considered calling the whole
thing off and just heading back to Barcelona.
There were two other problems.
First, my GPS had no reception in the Vale, but I knew how to get back
on the main road, and I could just follow the signs to France. Second, well, I had about 100 cigars in my
possession, and I was technically outside the EU. In theory, there are border controls from
Andorra to France. If I had to pay a
duty on 50 of those cigars (50 being the usual duty-free limit), it would
destroy all the money I had saved on them.
In practice, there were no border controls.
It was 4:30 PM by the time I arrived at the
parking lot. I was at one of the most amazing
cultural WHS I had ever visited. I was
starving, had to U, and was almost out of water. I was wrong about worrying. Carcassonne is a walled city, and it has
hotels and restaurants, so it never really closes. It’s the castle inside the castle that closes
at 6 PM. I took my picture at the
plaque, forcing myself to smile, and bought four souvenirs. Yes, just four. Two gifts for people whom I knew would
appreciate the hand-picked present I chose and a replica and keychain for
myself. I would later add a t-shirt to
that mix. Okay, now what was I going to
do? Was I going to walk around the
castle or look for Wi-Fi? I chose Wi-Fi, having been off the grid since I left my hotel 5 hours past, and people in New York were just starting to wake up. Eventually, I found an open network. I then went inside the castle, sitting in the
same area as Jimmy did last summer, smoking a cigar, just as he did, opting for
a Cohiba. I tried to relax, but it only lasted 5 minutes before I started taking pictures and moving
around.
I had some trouble paying for
the parking, being a little short on coins, having to use my souvenir
coins. I also knew that part of the
Canal du Midi, another WHS was right in the area. I had passed parts of the Canal on the way to
Carcassonne, but I didn’t to stop. I
found a place to take a great picture of the Canal with the Cite in the
background. It was perfect. Once I got on the highway, I floored it, easily breaking 161, getting up
to 180 at some point, just keeping up with traffic, and made my way back to my
hotel as quickly as possible, knowing that some food would make me feel
better. I had not had so much as bite to
eat since breakfast.
There was some
traffic along the way, but I still got to my hotel right at 9 PM. I still had not had an Official meal in
Spain, or even an unofficial one for that matter. I was too exhausted, tired, hungry, and
stressed to leave the hotel, and they had a rooftop smoking lounge. Perfect.
I could have an Official meal there.
I brought a Montecristo, and the view was amazing. I had Jamon Iberica and a veal burger, along
with two glasses of Cava. It was
perfect. I actually felt relaxed for the
first time the entire trip. After
dinner, I headed back to my room, lit up an Ardor, and proceeded to write this
entry, which I will now close so that I can publish and get some sleep.
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