Casa Rull, inside a prosperous Andorran farmhouse

Most of Andorra’s museums show you things. Casa Rull shows you a way of life. There are no display cases of precious objects, just a whole house the family seems to have only just left, and for me nowhere else in the country explains so well how a Pyrenean household worked before tourism.

A 17th-century house and the family who filled it

The house was built in the 17th century in Sispony and was one of the most important in La Massana parish. It changed as the family living in it changed, and a fire that damaged part of it in the 19th century forced further alterations. Today it stands four floors high.

Its owners were the Perich family, landowning farmers, known in Catalan as pagesos grassos. museus.ad explains that up to three generations could share such a house, along with farmhands, day labourers and maids, and that the estate came before the individual. Marriages were agreed between families with useful alliances in mind, and love, if it came into it at all, came second. Josep Perich Puigcercós, the last owner, agreed with the Andorran government to turn it into a house museum, which opened in June 2000.

What is there to see inside Casa Rull?

The visit works upwards. On the ground floor are the main hall, which leads to everything else, the tool store, the wine cellar and the larder. On the next floor are the rooms Andorra Turisme considers the most important, the kitchen, the bakehouse and the dining room, along with the alcoves, two small bedrooms divided by wooden partitions, and the room of ‘the uncle’, occupied by a priest in the family. Next to them lies the terraced kitchen garden.

The floor with the most rooms is the top one, with the ‘upper room’ and the room for death and the wake. The loft was used for drying fruit and herbs and, in later years, tobacco. museus.ad warns you not to expect great luxuries, at least not as we’d understand them today. That’s exactly what makes it interesting.

Opening hours and prices

museus.ad gives three timetables. Out of season, that is January to May and October to December, the house opens Tuesday to Saturday in two sessions (10:00-14:00 and 15:00-18:00), with Sunday and Monday closed. Summer changes things. June and September add Sunday mornings and keep Saturdays going until 20:00, while July and August push weekday closing back to 19:00. The Comú’s tourism website publishes different hours, so I’d ring +376 836 919 first.

Standard entry is €5 and concessions €2.50. Under-10s go free, and a guided tour, booked ahead, costs €1.50 more. It takes an hour, and the audio guide comes in five languages, English included. The museum is part of the PassMuseu, which saves you half on three museums, as I explain in museums in Andorra.

With children, or short of time

It works better with children than you might expect. museus.ad mentions a children’s corner and school workshops, and the house takes an hour without endless corridors. Numbers are capped at 30 people per visit, according to Andorra Turisme. Since 2021 the ticket-office space has also hosted short exhibitions by young Andorran artists, a small extra that changes regularly. If I only had an hour in La Massana, this is where I’d spend it.

Three houses to understand Andorra

Casa Rull belongs to the Rural Habitat itinerary with Casa d’Areny-Plandolit in Ordino and Casa Cristo in Encamp. Andorra Turisme presents it as a way of seeing how ways of life differed between the 19th and early 20th centuries. I’d leave Casa d’Areny-Plandolit, a manor house, until last, so the contrast with a farming household like this one really shows.

Getting there

The museum is on Carrer Major in Sispony, La Massana. By car it’s a short drive up from the town. The church of Sant Cristòfol, on its hill above Anyós, looks straight down on Sispony, so the two make an easy pairing for a single morning. If you’re not driving, museus.ad’s suggestion is the L5 or L6 into town and then the parish M1 via Escàs to the door. With an afternoon to spare, the same parish has Sant Climent de Pal and the Anyós church; they’re covered in La Massana.