Robert Louis Stevenson once wrote that: "For my part, I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel's sake. The great affair is to move." What a shame it is that he didn't live long enough to buy himself something with a heap of torque so that he could smoke his way across a continent or two. Anyone capable of such prophetic gearheadery back in 1879 clearly understood the key ingredient to any road trip, however long or short. Namely: that the destination is irrelevant. The only valid reason to conjoin points B and A is the journey--the potential for adventure and discovery that lies between key-on and shut-down. And no, B before A isn't evidence of acute dyslexia, it denotes the start and end of this particular trip: Barcelona to Andorra. Because, even adhering to the wisdom of R. L. Stevenson, road trips need certain fixed parameters--otherwise they become rambling, shabby affairs.
Now, Barcelona you and I know about. The beaches, the climate, the crazy-looking church, the incessant partying. But Andorra is an unknown: a place I had never visited. There is something undeniably exotic bound up in the notion of a European principality. It conjures up images of surgically optimized tax exiles who flit between caf and casino. Red Italian machinery littered on street corners like Toyota Priuses at a Hollywood film premiere.... Read full article