Vivand, the Avinguda Carlemany that became a pedestrian street

If Avinguda Meritxell is Andorra la Vella’s shop window, Avinguda Carlemany is Escaldes-Engordany’s. With one difference that, for me, makes it the better place to wander. It’s now pedestrianised and goes by another name, Vivand.

From Avinguda Carlemany to Vivand

The tourist board puts it simply. Avinguda Carlemany, for a long time one of the country’s main shopping streets, is now Vivand, a pedestrian shopping zone and one section of The Shopping Mile, the joint shopping strip of Andorra la Vella and Escaldes-Engordany. It runs from upper Escaldes down to Carrer de la Unió, and there, without crossing the road, Avinguda Meritxell begins.

Plenty of people still search for it as Avinguda Carlemany, which makes sense, since that’s the name that made it famous. If someone arranges to meet you on Vivand or on Avinguda Carlemany, it’s the same place.

What’s on Vivand?

The tourist board counts around 200 shops, restaurants and hotels, with well-known international brands, in an open-air setting. Two names stand out.

The first is Illa Carlemany, the best-known shopping centre in the country. Designed by Pere Aixàs, it covers 50,000 m² and opened in summer 2009, and Andorra Turisme says it won a 2012 award as Europe’s best small shopping centre. It holds more than seventy shops and places to eat, a cinema with five screens, a gym and a Caprabo supermarket, with 600 parking spaces underneath. I compare it with the others in Andorra shopping centres.

The second is the Júlia Centre, over 1,800 m² of perfume, cosmetics and pharmacy products, with a room for niche fragrances and a large water clock by Bernard Gitton. Perfumery runs deep in this parish, as the tourist board notes that Júlia Bonet i Fiter opened her first shop in Escaldes-Engordany in 1939. If perfume is the reason for your trip, everything worth knowing is in perfume shopping in Andorra.

Art at the top

The part of Vivand fewer people know is right at the top. Upper Vivand is home to the Escaldes-Engordany Art Centre (CAEE), which the tourist board describes as hosting temporary exhibitions on varied themes, each with its own programme of activities. The official museum inventory adds that the building dates from 1932 to 1934 and holds models of Andorran Romanesque churches. It’s a break I’d take between shops, especially on a wet afternoon.

How to fit it into your day

Vivand sits in Escaldes-Engordany, the same parish as Caldea. To me that’s the perfect plan for a day off the slopes, thermal waters in the morning and a stroll along the avenue in the afternoon, without touching the car. What the spa offers is in Caldea.

If you drive in, the tourist board says there are plenty of car parks around the avenue, and the one under Illa Carlemany has 600 spaces with direct access to the centre. From there you can keep walking towards Andorra la Vella along Carrer de la Unió.

The parish around it

Vivand makes more sense once you know where it sits. Escaldes-Engordany is the seventh and newest of Andorra’s parishes, created in 1978, and its town was once split between Escaldes and Engordany, separated by the Engordany bridge, according to the tourist board. The avenue crosses the most commercial part, and around it lie the thermal quarter, the Tosca and Engordany bridges and upper Escaldes, where Andorra Turisme places another, smaller shopping area of neighbourhood shops. If you have an hour spare, stepping off the avenue into those streets shows you the Escaldes that people actually live in all year round, a long way from the big brand names and the queues at the tills.

When to go

Vivand keeps Andorra’s general shop hours. Doors close at 8pm between Sunday and Thursday and at 9pm on Friday and Saturday, and the only days shops stay shut are 1 January, 14 March, 8 September and 25 December. Being pedestrianised and open-air, it’s pleasant late on a summer evening, and in winter the snowy peaks around the valley give it a very different feel.

Before you fill your bags, remember that arriving in Great Britain you can bring £390 of other goods tax-free, with separate limits for alcohol and tobacco. The rest of the shopping areas and hours are in shopping in Andorra, and the whole parish in Escaldes-Engordany.