My sister, Stacie, was with us for ten wonderful days. She helped us harvest and we took her to some of our favorite spots as well as some new ones. She really likes the mountains so we decided to drive to Andorra for the weekend. Andorra is a very small country between Spain and France.
"How small?" you ask. Well, they're thinking of having it carpeted.
But seriously, it's really small. Andorra has two main industries which are skiing and tax evasion. The Spanish like to go there because they can automatically save 20% on sales (IVA) tax. Stacie and Susan did some shopping and decided they could get better deals in the U.S. We had lots of fun walking around and did some hiking in the mountains. We liked the Pyrenees Hotel (especially the pool which looks out over the town and countryside) and the weather was perfect.
We stayed two nights in Andorra and headed back home on Monday. We stopped in the walled city of Montblanc so Stacie could look around. We had lunch at a Turkish place just outside the walls. Stacie and Susan picked up some artisan soap at the local cooperative. We cut across some pretty countryside to check out the fermentations in Cornudella.
We took Stacie over to look at the Templar castle at Miravet. It's about twenty minutes away. We got there just before sunset. The castle was originally started by the Moors before being taken over by the Knights Templar. Those of you who know "The Da Vinci Code" will have a little psuedo-historical familiarity with those dudes but Wiki is more accurate. The Catalunya government has done a superb job on restoration and they're still working on it.
We also took Stacie to Tarragona to see some of the Roman ruins. It was our first time inside the archeological musuem and they have some neat stuff. After that, we drove up to Siurana and had a beverage at a cliffside bar just outside the old town. There were some Scandinavian rock climbers there that were pretty amusing to listen to.
I've had a lot to do with the wine these past two weeks so Susan and Stacie went on their own to Barcelona for Stacie's last day in Spain. It sounds like they had a good time and I'll get some pictures posted as soon as I can find them.