Foreign Correspondence: Storm A Former Castle In Andorra

What's it like to live in a far-off place most of us see only on a vacation? Foreign Correspondence is an interview with someone who lives in a spot you may want to visit.

Jaume Tapies is president of Relais & Chateaux, a global consortium of historic/luxury lodgings and gourmet restaurants (www.relaischateaux.com). Tapies, 42, owns, operates and lives in El Castell de Ciutat in Andorra, a 180-square-mile micro-country between France and Spain in the Pyrenees Mountains.

Q. You're originally from Andorra?

A. Yes, I was born in my parents' hotel in the town of La Seu d'Urgell. They and my grandfather managed to buy the castle in 1970. After we sold the old hotel, we turned the castle into a beautiful place. I now live there with my family. El Castell de Ciutat" means "Castle of the City."

Q. Is it really an old castle?

A. Yes. The oldest part was built in AD 832 and was owned by the Count of Urgell. This was just after the Muslims were pushed out from the south of France. It was enlarged at the time when Louis XIV was king of France, by Vauban, the famous French fortification engineer, and renovated for protection. It was a military base until my father bought it.

From the outside, it looks like a fortress. The oldest part is at its top, and is untouchable. It is protected as a historic building, so it won't be changed. We have a concert hall in it.

Q. Does it cost a lot to stay there?

A. It's from $225 per night. Relais & Chateaux properties are mainly historical and include all types of lodgings — castles, manors, small country inns and even city hotels.

Q. What do you see when you look out the windows?

A. We're in the middle of the mountain range — surrounded by them, with peaks of up to 9,000 feet. Below, you see a beautiful valley with rivers and cows. In front of the hotel-castle is a river. The view inspires our restaurant. R&C usually offers a culinary experience based on where you're staying, with local products offered. That's the case at the castle.

My family's former hotel is in the town's center. The town has a population of 12,000.

Q. How do people get to Andorra?

A. By car or bus. There are good road connections to Toulouse, France or Barcelona, Spain. Both are about a two-hour drive. ... The nearest train station is about an hour away, in Puigcerda, Spain.

Q. I've read that Andorra attracts wealthy people.

A. After the Spanish Civil War (1936-39), we worked to keep Andorra independent and build a real economy. There's no army, so there are no big expenses. Taxes aren't high — enough to run the country. Tourism drives the economy. Andorra gets about 12 million visitors per year.

We have developed enormous mountain resorts. There's walking and cycling in summer, skiing in winter. Because the taxes are low, people like shopping here. There's a beautiful shopping center that's open late at night.

Many Americans come to the Pyrenees, starting out in Barcelona. They do the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela across northern Spain.

Q. Do Andorrans speak French with a Spanish accent ... or Spanish with a French accent?

A. We speak Catalan, a completely different language that's over 1,000 years old. You can hear it spoken in southern France, Andorra and in Catalonia, the region around Barcelona. Seven million people speak Catalan, and it has a culture of its own. ...

In terms of language, it's like when a Spaniard speaks to a Frenchman or Italian; there are some words that are similar, but you wouldn't understand it fully for quite a while. When my non-Andorran wife moved here, it took her a year to speak it.

Q. The historic saga "The Song of Roland" — about the heroic knight who died saving Charlemagne from an ambush — is set in the Pyrenees. Is the pass of Roncesvalles near Andorra?

A. We're about 150 miles from Roncesvalles, but there are mountains in between. From Andorra to Roncesvalles takes 30 minutes by air, and there are few things you can do in the Pyrenees that are as nice. You see all these little valleys below you.

By the way, Hannibal passed through our valley when the Carthaginians and their elephants attacked ancient Rome. There is a historian in Andorra who just published a book — it's only printed in Catalan — about that. Hannibal had 1,000 soldiers, and to feed them in the mountains, he had to split his army up and cross multiple valleys to find enough food. There just wasn't enough in ours.

Q. What's the best time of year to visit?

A. I personally like May, because there's an explosion of green in the mountains, and water running down the slopes from everywhere. It's a beautiful time to come.

Besides sports, gastronomy is important. The hunting season isn't driving masses of people to Andorra, but you can hunt deer and black pig, partridge and other birds. The biggest hunt is wild boar. There are hundreds of them.

Q. Can you order wild boar in your hotel's restaurant?

A. Of course, with my grandmother's recipe. We marinade it with herbs and red wine for a day. And then we prepare a sauce for it that has chocolate. It's beautiful.

This story was originally published January 17, 2011 at 12:00 AM with the headline "Foreign Correspondence: Storm A Former Castle In Andorra ."