ascending into the hall of the mountain princes

We're in the south of France, following our loosely planned travel route from Pau towards Carcassonne. The heat is shimmering over withering sunflowers and vinyards. The mountains of the Pyrenees follow us like hunking, hazy clouds on the horizon to our right. 

An idea is forming in my mind.

"I know the plan is to explore France. But ... how about a little detour to Andorra?"

It takes a few seconds for K to understand what I mean. Andorra, the independent and mysterious little principality hidden in the mountains between France and Spain, where nobody we know has ever been? In those few seconds, she already warms to the idea.

I'm a little doubtful myself. I'm nervous about driving in mountains and this is more than a little detour. Heights of 2000 meters, an unknown country. Still, it can be done in a day. And it's something very different - we have to google even the basic facts about Andorra. The microstate was founded by Charlemagne, officially became a democracy as late as 1993 and is ruled by two co-princes: a Spanish bishop and the President of France.

So the next day we set off. It's our first sunless day in France. Clouds hang low and grey as we follow the winding road towards the border, the only real road from France to Andorra. Higher and higher we go, past vast caves we wish we had time to stop and see. Hairpin turn after hairpin turn after hairpin turn. There is some traffic - the French and the Spanish apparently like to go shopping in Andorra because the prices on things like fuel and alcohol is lower.

Suddenly we're above the clouds. Around us lie a sunlit vista of treeless mountains. France is behind us, beneath a lid of clouds. We pass a border station without stopping.

The first thing greeting us is a shopping centre. A shopping village really, and ski resort, formed out of modern, colourful building blocks and followed by a long line of petrol stations. The uneven French road is suddenly a smooth, tidy highway. It continues higher, through a mountain pass. We pass a herd of freely grazing cows with cowbells on, then a herd of horses with similiar bells strung around their necks. We marvel at the tenacity of many cyclists doing high-altitude training on the steep road.

There are villages but they are nothing like the villages of France, where even the newer houses look old and cute. These are ski resorts with blocky chalets lined up on the slopes. Nothing looks old here, except the mountains surrounding us.

Andorra la Vella, the highest capital in Europe, hunkers down in a valley and the summer heat is oppressive. Most of the town seems to consist of one long shopping street filled with the most popular clothes stores. The language is Catalan but most of the people are French and Spanish visitors. Slightly dazed from the exciting journey and not a little jubilant, we find a table outside a restaurant, sit down and order goat's cheese salad and white wine. 

"We made it! We're in Andorra, of all the weird places on earth!" 

For me, the most poignant contrast is that I'm sitting in front of a shop selling expensive Karl Lagerfeld clothes. I'm wearing an old, faded t-shirt that I usually only wear at my cottage in the Finnish forests, the other end of the world (because it's too worn-out to be used in public). I packed it for the trip only in desperation because I simply did not have enough clothes suitable for the hottest summer in a century. I'm not ashamed to be seen wearing it here, though. It's a symbol - I came from the remote wilderness of the North all the way to the Principality of Andorra.

After lunch, we look around (not a lot to see except shops unless you count the beautiful mountains around us) and buy a lot of small items in different shops, paying cash in the hopes of receiving two-euro coins as change. Andorra is not a member of the EU but still issues its own euro coins, which are pretty rare. I finally find one of them among the French and German euro coins littering my purse. The only thing left to do is to enjoy an icecream, fill up our car with cheap fuel and go back to France - and we find a toll tunnel that makes the return trip surprisingly quick and easy.

I descend from the mountains back into beautiful France with some unnecessary items: a cheap linen top, a fridge magnet, a stick of lime-flavoured lip balm and, weirdly, a hash brownie.

the Atlantic and a new song

You may not think you'll miss the sea when you have fascinating mountains, historical river valleys, fields full of sunflowers and old castles to look at all day long.

But if you're born and raised by the seaside, reaching the coast feels like coming home. The light, the salty breeze, the seagulls, the smell of seaweed. It's easy to breathe. Your eyes find the blue horizon, your skin suddenly longs to be immersed in salt water.

You just have to find a beach, no matter how rocky. Walk barefoot into the outgoing tide. Breathe in the eternity of the open ocean. Look for the most beautiful smooth pebble. 

If it's La Rochelle, you also have to order mussles with white wine on the pier, browse creative shops and randomly walk into a church where an organist plays a song you've never heard before and instantly love.

da Vinci, Joan of Arc and the wonderful K

The Loire valley. Too many castles and palaces to count. A royal air. The murky, slow and sensous Loire river. A muggy heat that peaks at 43 degrees Celsius.

I have found the perfect travel partner in K. Like me, she enters a place of ancient history, sighs with happiness and settles down to read the basic information provided. She then takes all the time she needs to explore every nook and cranny, study the facts in the brochure or "histopad", admire the furniture and the views from the windows, plod up and down steep stairs to towers and dungeons. We have all the time in the world. We are equally awed by standing at Leonardo da Vinci's grave and being in the room where Joan of Arc met the future king of France.

K also understands the importance of putting on mascara in the mornings, in order to be ready to conquer the world, and the pleasure in ordering a glass of wine or a Ricard with the chèvre salad for lunch. 

And she drives the car.

My role in our holiday is to speak French and translate menus, look for cute bed & breakfasts and drink Côtes du Rhône out of the three-liter box hidden somewhere in the car. And admire the views, guess the song playing on the car radio and dream up wonderful places to visit.

The highlight of our days by the Loire: not the royal ramparts of Blois or Amboise, or the free rosé provided by one charming bed & breakfast hostess, or the views from Château de Chinon - but the coolness of the murky waters of the  mysterious Loire on one golden evening when we take off our sandals and wade in the shallows.

the Jura surprise

Sometime last winter, I was browsing through Google maps and happened upon the Jura Mountains, for no obvious reason except that I love mountains and Central Europe. I dove into Street View and followed a few mountain roads, sighing in pandemic isolation over views I would probably never see in real life.

This summer, I found myself in the passenger seat of a car at the foot of these mountains, near the French/Swiss border. The driver programmed the navigator with our destination - the Loire Valley in the middle of France. I peered at the suggested route, winding back and forth across the navigator screen. "Looks like it's taking us across the mountains." I'm a little nervous about driving in mountains. I  don't have much experience - Finland is pretty flat.

So we drove across the Juras. It was beautiful - steep, wooded slopes, valleys with cute villages. Good roads. A very surprising hilltop fortification (Forte l'Écluse) looming over the road. As surprising as my dream coming true - diving into a map and surfacing in France.

dragons and kings and dormant volcanoes

Three thousand three hundred kilometers, seven castles, four mountain ranges, three countries, two freedom-loving ladies, one car.

Happiness is getting into a car and driving through France (and small bits of Switzerland and Andorra) without any goal, just to see where you end up. 

We ended up in a heatwave, in the murky waters of the Loire, in the airy throne rooms of ancient kings, in the vicinity of dormant volcanoes, in a wild garden party with magnum bottles of wine, above the clouds on hairpin roads, in a concert with instruments we'd never heard of, in a cave with a chained dragon, under Roman triumphal arches, in medieval villages with loud cicadas and silent bats, in a hot city flat with no air-conditioning, at tables with strange and wonderful dishes, in the middle of our wildest dreams of freedom.