Today was my 'monster' day of travelling. I was meeting up with dad at the end of today in Arinsal, which is a tiny town about half an hour north of Andorra la Vella, the capital of Andorra. Yes, here's how to Google it because you don't know where Andorra is: http://lmgtfy.com/?q=andorra
This necessitated getting a train from my accommodation to the airport, a flight from Rome to Barcelona, a bus from Barcelona Airport to Andorra la Vella, and a local bus from there to Arinsal.
I'd bought a train ticket the night before, and the trains are quite frequent to the airport (every 15 minutes from 5:30am). The train left on time at 7:30, and I got to the airport in plenty of time for my flight with Vueling. Vueling is a Spanish low-cost airline with a base in Rome and Barcelona, so I thought they would be organised. Eeeeeeh! Wrong answer.
I arrived at the check-in area, where there were two separate queues - one for bag drop, one for check in. Both were so long I couldn't tell which was which, until I was told that I was in the check-in queue, not the bag drop queue (I had checked in online the night before).
Both European flights I got were completely paper-free - Vueling and Airberlin both accepted the mobile boarding pass at bag drop, at the gate, and on the plane. GET YOUR SHIT TOGETHER VIRGIN/QANTAS/JETSTAR/TIGER!
I was waved into an express queue, because the normal queues were moving a little slowly. The 'express queue' had about 10 people in it, and we were waiting in that queue for 25 minutes. Go figure. I went through in about 60 seconds, if that. Bloody novice travellers!
Having joined the uber-long security queue, I realised as I got to the front I had a full water bottle. D'oh! By this stage all my 'stuff' was in the box, and I was ready to quickly nick off to the rubbish bin to empty the bottle, less than 100m away. The nazi in the security queue made me pack all my crap BACK INTO my bags, go and empty the bottle, and rejoin the back of the queue. NOT HAPPY!
Vueling's flight schedule is identical to those in Australia. Our '1 hour and 50 minute' flight was delayed by 20 minutes leaving. Announcement: 'flying time 1 hour and 20 minutes, we will arrive 5 minutes early!' Congratulations, Vueling:
Our ride to Barcelona
After flying over the Tyrrhenian Sea and the island of Sardinia, we arrived in Barcelona, and to Vueling's largest terminal. We were dropped on the middle of the tarmac, to get a bus past about a dozen other Vueling planes. The terminal was actually quite nice, with lots of duty free shops but it was a wide-open space and not packed with people.
At the baggage claim (one of 18 in just one terminal!) I met an Australian girl who had been waiting 15 hours for her luggage from Paris. She was only staying in Barcelona for one day, and Vueling had promised her 4 times that 'it would be on the next Paris flight'. She was one of 20 people from 3 flights from Paris waiting for their bags. And Vueling said they required receipts for food reimbursement, but security wouldn't let her out, and then back in, to buy food, and the only thing in the terminal were receipt-free vending machines. Ouch!
I again had the magic touch, my bag was the second one out. After asking the information desk where I could find the long-haul bus terminal, I headed in the general direction and found the bus stop. I was originally supposed to wait nearly 4 hours in Barcelona (in case the flight was delayed) for the bus, but there was one there leaving two hours earlier. With my atrocious Spanish, I eventually found out that I could jump on the early bus.
The travel time to Andorra was just under 4 hours. In that time, we passed through some spectacular scenery in the Pyrenees:
The Pyrenees opening out
Once we arrived at the bus station in Andorra la Vella (which was very busy, because there's no airport or train station in the entire country), I managed to find the local bus stop, where I waited about 20 minutes for one of the local buses. The buses are quite small, seating about 40 people. Eventually the bus showed up and a hair-raising half-hour later I arrived in Arinsal. The bus stop was right outside the hotel!
I signed in to the hotel, and found out that dad had stayed here for an extra night. Dad eventually got back from a walk 'up the hill' across from the hotel, and after a couple of hours we headed down to the in-house restaurant. As part of our hotel rates, we managed half-board for an extra €5 per person. It was an amazing investment - it's a full 3-course meal every night:
Tonight's menu
I had the Putanesca pasta, grilled pork chops and lemon sorbet. The quantity was amazing, and the quality was pretty good for the price we paid.
That's all for today from Arinsal, until tomorrow, when we're planning on a hike (or walk) in the Pyrenees.
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