Is a snowboarding trip to Arinsal Andorra worth it? It’s cheap but how much is there for boarders to enjoy? I have tried to provide some basic information from an English snowboarders perspective. So here’s what we found in 2005.
Arinsal is a small village in Andorra, which is 5km from the capital city Andorra la Velle. Andorra is situated on the Pyrenees (between France and Spain). It is a duty free country and as such is a good place to buy equipment, although there are limits to the amount of duty free goods that are allowed to be taken through customs. The resort of Arinsal is linked to the neighbouring resorts of Pal and Arcalís, all three resorts are run by Vallnord. The Vallnord website (http://en.vallnord.com) contains a wealth of information on the three resorts including piste maps, statistics and travel information.
There is no airport in Andorra so getting there means travelling first to either France or Spain then travelling by road up into the mountains. The road section of the journey takes about 4 hours through winding mountain roads. If you don’t have access to a vehicle pre-booking an airport transfer is a good idea. We booked our holiday through Panorama who organised everything for us; we were due to fly from Gatwick to Toulouse followed by a 4 hour bus transfer to Arinsal.
When checking in at Gatwick we were informed that there was a slight technical hitch with this plan. There are apparently 2 main roads that lead into Andorra, one from the south of France and one from the north of Spain. The road into Andorra from Toulouse was closed as it had been completely blocked by a recent heavy snowfall. Luckily for us all of the people on the plane were heading to Andorra and the travel agents managed to get the flight diverted to Reus in Spain. The transfer from Reus was also 4 hours so the only inconvenience to us was an extra ½ hour on the flight. When we arrived in Reus we were met by a rep and ushered onto a bus to take us to our hotel.
On arrival in Arinsal we got settled into our hotel the St. Gothard, a basic but clean hotel with it’s own restaurant and bar. Our food was included in the price and consisted of a buffet style breakfast and dinner. I am a particularly fussy eater but I still managed to find plenty of fairs to satisfy my taste, although vegetarians may struggle. The bar offered nightly entertainment in the form of an English man who organised quizzes and activities, he was also a talented musician. The St. Gothard is situated right at the bottom of the steep hill that runs right through the village. The regular free ski bus was a god send, picking up right outside and saving us having to carry our snowboards on a ten minute uphill walk to the gondola.
The Gondola runs from the centre of the village and takes people to and from the slopes until 5pm each day. For those who prefer not to get the gondola back down there is a blue run that leads down to the very top of the village where there is a 2 man chair lift going back up. When we arrived in Arinsal we were complete beginners with only having had 5 hours of lessons at Milton Keynes indoor snow dome. The first few days were spent on the very busy learning slope in a lot of pain from the constant stacks. Eventually we resigned ourselves to a very reasonably priced private lesson, in 50 minutes we were riding the chair lifts and linking turns, a big improvement. Once able to snowboard a little we were free to explore a little more of the resort including getting up to the snow park. No we weren’t cruising the grinds, riding the half pipe or catching big air off the kickers! We were sat outside a very nice little café having a coffee and watching the experts. On the whole as complete beginners we found Arinsal to be a good resort to learn at with friendly staff and plenty of easy terrain. Unfortunately we were not advanced enough to check out Pal or Arcalis, this was a shame as the cable car across to Pal is said to be very picturesque. Still we had a good week on the slopes and some nice evenings out towards the end, when the pain from the first 2 days had subsided.
On venturing out for the apres-ski we found Arinsal to be full of good bars and restaurants with plenty of choice available. There is a great party atmosphere and if your into rep organised activities the various tour operators run regular nights out on the town. The shops on the other hand were fairly limited and the equipment was more expensive here than in Andorra la Velle. I would recommend the short bus or taxi ride into the capital for a lot more variety and a cheaper selection of shops and restaurants.
On the whole we very much enjoyed our stay in Arinsal and found it to cater well for beginners. I am unable to determine exactly how good it would be for the more advanced riders, but I can say across all three resorts they only have a couple of black runs, so I’m guessing not good. For the intermediate riders I have heard that Pal has some more challenging tree lined red runs and from the comfort of the café the terrain park looked good.
