Andorra doesn’t have an airport. Even if it wanted one, there’d be nowhere to put it. But while most visitors hurtle down the motorway from Toulouse or Barcelona to reach this pint-sized Pyrenean principality, I intended to follow a more convoluted route. From the sleepy town of Villefranche-de-Conflent in southwestern France, the Ligne de Cerdagne beckoned me into the Catalan Pyrenees.
This rail journey is better known as the Train Jaune because of its canary-yellow livery. When the line was built more than a century ago, its 39 glorious miles of track required some serious engineering – not least 19 tunnels – to conquer the mountainous terrain and put an end to the isolation of the area’s upper cantons. Though it operates all year round, open wagons are attached in summer so that passengers can get a better look at the vertiginous drops on either side as the train crosses the line’s many bridges and viaducts.
