Andrew_Kerr

UK - 19-Jun-25 -

I can only comment of the one Romanesque church of Andorra that I have been to, the Church of Sant Esteve, in Andorra la Vella.
In 2016 I was staying in Barcelona with my Spanish wife, herself a Catalan native of Barcelona and I suggested we took a trip up to Andorra. Why? She asked, it's just a huge tax free shopping centre full of French and Spanish looking for a bargain and filling their cars with cheap petrol. Not to be put off, I persisted and one evening at a meal with several of my wife's Catalan friends I repeated my desire to go to Andorra. Almost in unison they said, why? it's just a huge shopping centre........
Anyway, a few days later we found ourselves driving through the snow capped mountains of the Pyrenees heading for Andorra and me thinking, this is beautiful, what are they talking about?
We finally joined the queue of traffic on the approach to the tiny capital of Andorra la Vella, where the roads were lined with endless petrol stations and supermarkets and signs advertising tax free products and I began to realise, my wife and her friends may be right after all.
Aside from all the retail opportunities to buy discounted goods, I found Andorra la Vella to be a rather pleasant town, with a few interesting historic buildings and some pleasant streets lined with bars and restaurants, charming would be pushing it, but pleasant it certainly was.
On the way back to the underground car park stood the aforementioned Church of Sant Esteve, looking somewhat isolated in it's incongruous location seemingly surrounded by roads and pedestrian walkways, and yet, here was a handsome Romanesque Church with the regions trademark square bell tower, towering over a very pretty church dating back to the 12th century, although altered over the years.
Among the alterations is the west front, a work by the Catalan architect Josep Puig i Cadafalch, an architect responsible for one of my favourite Barcelona buildings the Gothic, Mordenist Casa de les Punxes. I didn't realise that at the time or I would spent longer admiring it!
I had no idea of the significance of this church but it was attractive enough to make me feel the excursion to Andorra had been worth it.
Since then I have discovered there are better, prettier examples set in the mountainous terrain that makes up much of Andorra and I can see why they would be nominated for a UNESCO listing.