| Reviews: 12 |
| North Yorkshire |
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  3 of 5, "dants does Encamp" 02/01/2007 @ 10:32:37 |
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| 3 members have given this review an average rating of 4.33 of 5 |
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| Price Paid |
| £200ish |
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| Booked Trip Through |
| Independent |
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| Times Visited |
| Just Once |
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| Review Detail |
Here's the circumstances:
Mrs dants and I were looking for a way to kill time between Xmas and New Year 2006 and decided to grab some cheapy flights to Barcelona, get a car and head off to play in the snow for three days, and for our purposes this trip was ideal. So here's the detail.
Encamp's basically an alpine suburb of Andorra La Vella. It's a small working town with a string of reasonably priced hotels that seem to mainly service Spanish families looking to get away to the mountains. It's perfectly pleasant, rather quiet and pretty functional as a base camp to explore Andorra.
We stayed at the Hotel Encamp which is a modern three star hotel with nice double rooms and the usual overdose of central heating that plagues snow resorts world wide. Since we'd had our hotel switched we were given full board. Since the food was free I've no complaints, although it's not somewhere I'd choose on the basis of the food. That said, it filled a gap at the start amd end of the day.
As a snow resort, Encamp didn't exist when we were there. It's a possiblity that there coiuld be some slopes low down given a healthy dump but really Encamp's key purpose is the Funicamp link that whisks you to the heat of the Grand V (sorry, too lazy to check spelling) area. In this respect it does a top job. The world class snow making and altitude means that despite there being no snow for weeks we were still able to amuse ourselves hitting the main runs around Pas de la Casa / Grau Roig. Fine for a couple of days although it gets horribly icy.
We then took the car across to the Vall Nord area, spending a day in Orcalis. Orcalis is a Catalan snow area which is wholly tailored to the local market. That said, it had some nice long runs that were great for a day, despite the lack of real snow. I can imagine in the right conditions it would merit a few days with strong off piste potential.
It's not a place I'd choose for a long holiday but it's a great getaway if you just want to escape and ride and don't want to be locked in to a package holiday. Not a place for the lads but good for the kids and / or the Mrs. |
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| Strengths |
Andorra La Vella must rank in the top ten places in all the world to go shopping. Amazing outdoor stores with full ranges of every major brand, everything duty free, electronics shops in every other building and a fair number of classy places too - think Geneva only without all the architecture. You can always find it cheaper but for checking out stock in a pleasant environment it beats Slush and Rubble hands down. Would also imagine it's great if you've finally got the cash to get yourself the Omega you've been promising yourself for years, don't want to get it off the Web but still want a few quid off.
Good links to everywhere else in Andorra. |
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| Hot Spots |
| Didn't find any, doubt they exist. |
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| Weaknesses |
| It's a city suburb with Hotels, not really a substantial resort destination in it's own right. |
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| Similar Resorts Visited |
| Bit like being based in Bourg St Maurice |
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