We had about a day to spare before we needed to be in Valencia for Glen’s conference so what else do you do but land after 20 hours of transit, jump in a car, and drive 3.5 hours to Andorra.

Why go to Andorra, you ask? Because it’s there.

Sandwiched between Spain and France, the chances of us being close enough for this little jaunt again were slim so we went for it.

We landed at Barcelona at 8:30am, met Ravinder who’d flown in from Malaga, picked up the cigarette smoke-infused car, and zoomed off to Andorra.

Fortunately, I’d slept on the plane, plus I’d loaded up on coffee, so the drive was doable up to the Pyrenees. The roads were great and I loved zooming along at 120 km/h.

The scenery was stunning as we approached the jagged mountain peaks, while Glen spoke non-stop for about an hour and a half about his recent experience examining. I looked out the window and indulged my eyes.

Crossing the border into Andorra was easy. We didn’t get stopped, though if I’d done my research, we would have, just so we could get a stamp in our passports.

The country is tiny, the town’s small, but well supplied with plenty of cars on narrow streets. We arrived early at our hotel in the capital, Andorra La Vella, so left the car and went walking to see the sites.

I’d agonised too much before flying about which pairs of shoes to take, limiting myself to two so I could fit everything into a cabin baggage sized suitcase. I chose the wrong shoes as by the time we’d got to Barcelona (after a day’s exploring/walking in Singapore), I had blisters on both feet and struggled to walk.

But walk we did! (And I will never bring these shoes on holiday again. Futre Dan take note.)

There’s not a huge amount to see in Andorra, other than lots of mountains, which would be great for hiking or skiing, depending on the season, so we saw most of what the city/town had to offer.

A river cuts through the town, with lots of water rushing down from the melting snow in the mountains., so there were a lot of bridges to cross, old and new.

We saw the Dali clock sculpture thing, walked up the commercial centre (and bought a Starbucks Andorra mug for the collection), saw a church, saw an old bridge, crossed a new bridge, saw the big spiky building (which I think is a spa), then had lunch and returned to the hotel in the rain.

We checked in, very much flagging with the jet lag, but while Glen napped, I went out. It would remain light for another four or five hours at least, so I checked out Parc Central with its sculptures, then walked up to the other historic centre.

Old church, old streets, old sculptures, plus some new modern buildings and seven sculptures of men on top of poles at the municipal centre. More walking.

Got back to the hotel after an hour, with Glen waking up and feeling a bit rotten. We forced ourselves to stay awake and had dinner at the ridiculously late time of 8pm (nothing’s open before then…) and struggled to stay awake through dinner.

The staff are clearly more used to people wanting to relax over dinner and take their time. I couldn’t wait to be done fast enough. Off to bed at 9:30 for some desperately needed sleep.

The next day we had breakfast and got on our way, heading north to a Mirador 25 minutes north. It took us up and into the mountains, along exceptionally winding roads with breathtaking scenery.

It reminded me of being on holiday in Wales with my friend Nikki and the way the roads seemed to be just a little too close to the edge. I thought it was fun, Nikki did not and eventually asked me to drive on her behalf. Glen did not offer to drive for me; he was the Nikki.

The mirador has a platform that juts out over the giant drop below. It had a fabulous view of the valley and the towns that make up Andorra. Stunning, stunning, stunning.

Then we jumped in the car for our day-long drive to Valencia. This required driving north through the French border with Andorra, through a bit of France (including through a picturesque village whose name I can’t now find on the map), and down to Spain.

It was a long day, taking about 7.5 hours to get 550km to Valencia, but we made it, and Andorra is done.