Andorra

Country Information:

Andorra is a landlocked country, sandwiched between the French and Spanish borders. The country is a parliamentary democracy that is ruled as a co-principality by two princes—the French president and a Spanish Bishop. There roughly 86,000 Andorrans living here. Andorra is the only country in the world where the official language is Catalan. But French, Castilian and Portuguese are also widely spoken. The majority of the population practices Roman Catholicism. The capital of Andorra is Andorra La Vella. The time zone is 6 hours ahead of EST.

Jim’s Perspectives:

Andorra is known for its tourism, retail and spectacular mountainous views. In fact because it is so mountainous there is only one road entering Andorra from France and likewise only one road entering Andorra from Spain. Andorra has ski resorts and mountainous slopes. 

Took a hike through downtown and through a residential district to snap the photo above (2015).

One fun fact about Andorra is that Andorrans are a minority in their country. Estimates show that roughly two thirds of the Andorran population are not of Andorran nationality. In fact people of Spanish nationality account for roughly 43% of the population.

 

France

On our "Backroads" bike trip from Provence to Cannes in France Jim's Perspectives: I've lost count of how many times I have visited this gem of a country. Some of the more memorable time were as a young man right out of college, I took two summers to improve my...

Egypt

Sphinx in Egypt, 1995 on a father and son tripJim & Kenan 2021, on a father and son trip Abu Simbel near the Sudan border Country Background: The capital of Egypt is Cairo, though there are currently existing plans to build a new capital. About 100 million people...

Russia

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