El Serrat, where the Ordino valley runs out

El Serrat is the point where the Ordino valley stops being a valley and turns into mountains. Above it there’s only the Sorteny park and the road to Arcalís. It’s a small place with no big monuments, but for walkers and skiers I think it’s the best base in the parish.

A village at the end of the road

Of the eight villages in Ordino, El Serrat is the last on the CG-3 before the ski area. Its church, Sant Pere, was built between the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and rebuilt in the early twentieth, a simple rectangle with a little bell gable over the door. The tourist board notes that the old royal road began here and followed the river all the way down to Andorra la Vella, through Ordino, La Massana and Escaldes-Engordany.

El Serrat is also where you’ll now find the Ordino bridge. Its original spot was further south on the old track between the two villages, until road widening in 1980 forced a move; its official listing gives its current address as avinguda de la Font del Canyar. It has a sharply pointed arch and a cobbled deck, and I cover it alongside the others in medieval bridges in Andorra.

Gateway to the Sorteny park

El Serrat earns its place through what’s above it. A track leads from the village to the Sorteny valley, a nature park since 1999, and the council runs a bus up for €0.20 per person. The park car park holds about 50 cars and charges in July and August, so in high summer I’d leave the car in the village.

In the park itself, the easiest walk is the 2.15 km track from the car park to the Borda de Sorteny hut, about an hour and a quarter with 185 m of climbing. If you’d rather walk up from the bottom, Riberamunt is the council’s name for the 15 km royal road between Ordino village and El Serrat. You can break it into stages and ride the parish bus back.

Why stay in El Serrat?

Because you’re close to everything uphill. The Ordino Arcalís slopes are further up the same road, and on the council’s accommodation list El Serrat has three of the parish’s four four-star hotels, plus a three-star and an aparthotel. In the ski season that means no drive across the valley every morning.

Two winter points for British drivers. Between 1 November and 15 May, Andorran law makes chains or winter tyres compulsory, and the road keeps climbing above the village to the ski area. And the Borda de Sorteny hut, at 1,965 m, stays open in winter too, so a snowshoe outing from El Serrat can end with a hot meal. I compare El Serrat with Ordino village in hotels in Ordino.