Andorra is quite an unusual place. Essentially, it seems to be one long road through a valley. From the border to the city centre, we went past over numerous roundabouts, and it’s quite unusual to see a sign simply saying “France”. And coming back a sign saying “Spain”. It was at roundabout with one of these signs where it appeared that we taken a wrong turn.

We are following Google Maps, who said take this route, but it was Nikki who pointed out, we are now on the way to France. The thing about Andorra, is that it seems to be designed by the same person who designed Mario kart. So essentially it doesn’t matter what road you take, it’ll always end back on the main road.

Within metres of getting over the border, all our phones began pinging as we received texts saying that our roaming was no longer valid in Andora, and to use data we would need to buy a package, Text cost 50p, phone calls cost £2 per min. Of course, Andora is not in the EU, or is it, or is it even a country, or is it a principality? Who knows! Anyway, our roaming was no good here. A bolt on data package would cost us £26, so we decided the best option was to turn mobile data off, and just go off the grid for a few hours. It was probably very good for our mental health (It certainly wasn’t).

With the ladies safely deposited, myself and Tibu did the return trip and collected the boys.

It was only when we were halfway back to the boarder, that I realised that Karen had my passport and Tibu still had Rachel‘s passport. Now we haven’t been stopped by passport control on the way through, but if they were to stop us this time, I had a problem.

Luckily, the Andorran Security border control we still having a good chat, and this time I was less inclined to knock on the windows and ask for a stamp.

Josh directed us to a car park, the girls had found a bar with wifi and so let us know where we they were and by just after 1:30 pm we are all back together in Andorra.

How to describe Andora? I guess it’s like the worlds biggest duty-free shop. There are shops that are called duty-free, but even the products in the shops are cheap. For example a litre bottle of Ballentines cost €10.50, currently nearer £22 in Morrisons in the UK.

The other thing that was quite unusual was actually seeing cigarettes on sale. Over the past few years in the UK, branding has been removed from cigarette packets, they have been shut away behind doors at point of sale, all in an attempt to reduce the attractiveness of them.

In fact, when we were flying back from Oslo early this year, even in duty-free, The “tobacco room” as it was called was tucked down an alley away from the main duty-free. You really had to walk along way and be dedicated to get your nicotine fix.

But here in Andorra, the death sticks are on display for all to see. In fact, they are perfectly situated next to the Toblerone. It was like stepping back in time seeing all the branding on the packets. I mean, I really dislike smoking, but I did quite like the camel on the on the packet, and seeing the red and white of Marlborough made me quite nostalgic for the days when we could see all these brightly cleared packages.

With so many different cigarette brands on offer, it was like the starting grid of the 1974 Grand Prix.

I would put Andorra in the same category as Geneva, Zürich and Luxembourg. We have visited all three of these places over the years, and they all have a similar feel. A disproportionately high number of omega watch shops, very clean streets, a casino were on a normal UK high street we would have a Primark, and they are all just a little bit bland and soulless. I’ve never been to Monte Carlo, but I imagine it’s a similar situation there. There’s obviously a lot of money here, but not many people to actually spend it, but they are keeping the place tidy just in case.

We went around exploring the city, and stopped for lunch. It was a very nice lunch, but no confusion with the menus. They gave us English menus. (I mean come on guys give me something to work with here!).

We then we got caught in thunder storm and ended up sheltering in various shops. When got to the end of the day.

We had to work out how we were going to shuttle people back.

It was a bit like one of those logic problems where you have to work out how to get a cat, a ferrets, a Fox and a chicken across the river without them eating each other. We wanted to take four people so that they could all go back in Josh’s car, but we only had five seats in our hire car, which would mean that Tibu would have to face the Mario kart course on his own on his way back. (Was it donkey Kong that was the navigator? ). Tibu bit the bullet and said don’t worry I think I know the road now and so Karen and Rachel and I found a little coffee shop, with Wi-Fi, to kill time until Tibu returned.

Josh had calculated from the morning that it took approximately 30 minutes from us dropping the girls off, to us getting back into the city centre. After about 15 minutes, Nikki rang and said could you go to a different pick up point, as the traffic was terrible, to save to the hassle of Tibu trying to come to where we were. No problems, it wasn’t that far a walk, and the rain has stopped.

We left the café and began walking to a suitable rendezvous spot. It was only as we began walking, that we got a text from Nikki saying they weren’t even at the border, and we’re in queueing traffic. So this really meant that we had left the café, and more importantly, the Wi-Fi, a wee bit early.

We stood and waited at the rendezvous point. And waited, and waited.

Eventually I discovered that we wandered down to the bus station we could use their Wi-Fi and about an hour after leaving us, we had notification, that Nikki had made it over the wall into freedom and was now enjoying roaming in a Spain.

Meanwhile, Tibu was heading back up the Mario kart route to pick us up. The thing being of course now Tibu was on his own, had no data, and no real way of contacting us without paying an exorbitant fee .

Eventually, an hour and a quarter having left us, Tibu arrived and we then headed to the border. It was a wee bit quicker for us, but by the time we rolled back into the villa at 9 pm, Tibu had earned his Negroni. Crossing the border six times in one day, had really taken its toll. (No pun intended).