After planning to go snowboarding with my best friend for 4 years, we got our act together and booked to go this January. It had to be cheap, and we were absolute beginner boarders. Both competent skiers mind.
Getting there. We home at 3 in the morning to get a 7.30 flight out of gatwick ... Read review
NH Hotels, the hotel chain leader in Europe, with more than 300 hotels in 20 countries in Europe, Latin America and Africa. Enter into our web site and find the best available tariff at all times
Advantages: Cheap, excellent snowboard school Disadvantages: Transport
...to the tiny village of soldeu in Andorra - El tarter is the next village over on Andorras only road.
We arrived at our hotel at around 2 in the afternoon, unpacked, and then reached the first and only major problem of the holiday. The only public transport is buses, and they are infrequent, and manned by drivers with little English. Still, we eventually found one and got down to the kit shop in the village (two kilometers away) to ... ...5 days passed in no time. Learning to snowboard is a bit like learning to walk, you just keep falling over. We had cracked it after 3 days though, and had lots of fun sliding down mountains with very little control.
The resort itself is just bars, hotels and ski shops, with a couple of small general stores thrown in for colour. Nightlife is good, skiers go to the aspen bar where they have kangaroo boxing, and snowboarders go to the ... more
After planning to go snowboarding with my best friend for 4 years, we got our act together and booked to go this January. It had to be cheap, and we were absolute beginner boarders. Both competent skiers mind.
Getting there. We home at 3 in the morning to get a 7.30 flight out of gatwick to toulouse, followed by a 3 hour bus journey up to the tiny village of soldeu in Andorra - El tarter is the next village over on Andorras only road.
We arrived at our hotel at around 2 in the afternoon, unpacked, and then reached the first and only major problem of the holiday. The only public transport is buses, and they are infrequent, and manned by drivers with little English. Still, we eventually found one and got down to the kit shop in the village (two kilometers away) to hire our boots and boards.
The next 5 days passed in no time. Learning to snowboard is a bit like learning to walk, you just keep falling over. We had cracked it after 3 days though, and had lots of fun sliding down mountains with very little control.
The resort itself is just bars, hotels and ski shops, with a couple of small general stores thrown in for colour. Nightlife is good, skiers go to the aspen bar where they have kangaroo boxing, and snowboarders go to the T-bar which is run by a couple of ex instructors.
I wholeheartedly recommend going there, but the hotel Austria is rather far from the resort (but cheap). Check the snow quality before you go too, because it was all melting when I was there in mid january.
Advantages: cheap everything, great nightlife. Disadvantages: not such good snow or terrain as the Alps.
as well, though I have only ever heard Andorran people recommend Barcelona. Which brings me neatly to another thing. The language. Although Andorra is usually described as half Spanish-half French, my experience is that it's a lot more Spanish. There is also a sizeable Catalan influence, with many locals speaking this language too. So don't expect to get by on GCSE French.
Andorra la Vella is Andorra's capital city, and is the place to stay if you want to meet Andorran people who have not become disenchanted with English visitors by the drunken excesses of the resorts. Most people come to Andorra to drink as much as to ski, and are based in the mountains at either Soldeu-ElTartar or Arinsal-Pal. Nearly all packages offer a day trip (or at least an evening) into Andorra La Vella, usually to visit the Spa Baths and go shopping, with good ...
