Friday, July 10, 2009

The Duty Free Sandbag of Andorra


Today's stage of le Tour finishes in Andorra. Looks beautiful, no? That's what we thought, too, but our experience was different.

Romney examines Andorra on her blog.

In part, "Andorra is a sandbag. If you took Las Vegas, NYC, and Vail and put all three areas into Little Cottonwood Canyon you would end up with Andorra la Vella - and that's the best part. Okay, the setting is lovely (you keep trying to think), but what the French politely describe as a "hard edge of tax evaders" was really just a beautiful geography made grotesque by money and greed. Driving through was disappointing, but the appalling nature of what is being constructed and the high end retail of fashion and cars allowed room for amazement, if not actual enjoyment. Instead of stopping in this place for even a souvenir magnet we stayed in bumper-to-bumper traffic to roll through as quickly as possible to the freedom, beauty, and sunshine of the Cataluya Region of Spain."

It is, however, quite steep. Today's finale should be painful for the riders and fun to watch. But for once, I'm actually glad I'm not there.

4 comments:

Alice said...

My parents are flying in from France next week, and my mom has some perfume for me that she bought in.... Andorra, of course. That's what we do in Southern France.

Steve Edwards said...

Yeah, well, if I lived in Carcassone I might visit on occasion, but it's a long way to go for a giant duty free shop. Would rather spend my time in Catalunya.

Heard you met Romney today. She said you were looking quite fit.

Anonymous said...

I adore the way Romney writes.

J

Steve Edwards said...

Totally agree. It's part of how I fell in love with her.