Grandvalira

Grandvalira is the largest ski domain in the Pyrenees, and it is most of Andorra's eastern valley: two hundred and ten kilometres of piste linking Encamp, Canillo, El Tarter, Soldeu, Grau Roig and Pas de la Casa on the French border, from the villages at 1,700 metres to the ridges above 2,600, with the sun of the south and the snow of altitude. Soldeu's ski school taught a generation of British families; Pas de la Casa keeps the après and the duty-free; and the whole country, which has no airport, no passport control from its neighbours and no VAT worth mentioning, arranges itself around the mountain from December to April and around the bike park in summer.

The traveller skis the domain end to end on a single pass — the Funicamp from Encamp up to the ridge, the long runs down to Soldeu, the bowl of Grau Roig, the border slopes above the Pas — and eats in a mountain hut at noon with a view into France; takes a lesson at Soldeu, which does them better than anywhere in the range; goes down the valley to Caldea, the thermal spa at Escaldes, for the evening; visits Meritxell, the country's sanctuary, in Canillo; and, if it comes in summer, rides the bike park, walks to the lakes above Pessons and finds the mountain empty.

The Guide's honesty: Andorra is a country of shops as much as of slopes, and Pas de la Casa on a Saturday shows it — the villages of Soldeu and El Tarter are the quieter, prettier base —; the weekends belong to Barcelona and Toulouse, and the weekdays are the traveller's; the snow is Pyrenean, generous some years and thin others, and the altitude of the Pas is the insurance; the road from Spain and France closes in storms and chains are a legal fact; and the country's prices, for the Alps' cousin, are the honest reason so many come.