Canillo's Motorcycle Museum, 150 bikes in the gondola building

I’ll admit the Motorcycle Museum isn’t why anyone books a trip to Andorra. But it’s exactly where you’ll be anyway, in the gondola building in Canillo, it costs €5.50 and in an hour it walks you through over 150 years of motorcycling history. For a wet afternoon in the valley, not much beats it.

Where it is and when it’s open

The museum takes up 700 m² on a single floor of the gondola building on plaça Carlemany, right in the centre of Canillo. It’s the same building the gondola leaves from for Grandvalira and Mont Magic family park, so it fits neatly before or after a morning up the mountain.

It opens Wednesday to Saturday from 9:30 to 13:30 and 15:00 to 19:00, and Sunday from 10:00 to 17:00. It’s closed on Mondays and Tuesdays, which is worth remembering if your ski week starts on a Saturday and you’re planning a mid-week museum day. The council warns that hours may change on national holidays.

What’s in the Motorcycle Museum?

The collection runs to about 150 bikes, laid out by section. It opens with Sylvester Howard Roper’s steam motorcycle of 1867 and moves on to the first petrol bikes of the late nineteenth century. Andorra Turisme also points to a British Holden patented in 1896 and a French Diamant of 1900, both steam-driven, plus a 1915 American Cleveland with a strikingly sporty look.

Then come the bikes everyone recognises. A 1931 Norton Manx that won the Tourist Trophy on the Isle of Man, which will please any British enthusiast, Vespas and Lambrettas from the fifties and sixties, the Bultaco and Montesa trials bikes that dominated their era, seventies trail bikes and big modern sports machines. There’s also a 1940 BMW with sidecar and a 1968 Honda Solo Electra, which Andorra Turisme presents as the first electrically powered motorcycle.

If I had to pick one corner, it would be the four rally bikes lent by Cyril Despres, five times Dakar winner on two wheels. Seeing them after the nineteenth-century steam machines sums up, in one corridor, how far the motorcycle has come.

Prices and discounts

A standard ticket costs €5.50. Concessions, for pensioners, students, Carnet Jove holders and people with special needs, are €2.50, and under-10s go free. Groups should ask. These are the prices set by Canillo council, which owns the museum. The government’s museums site, museus.ad, lists the concession at €3, so the two official sources are 50 cents apart; I’d treat the council’s figure as the reference. At those prices a family of four with two under-10s pays €11 in total, which is hard to beat for an hour indoors in Andorra.

There are two useful combined tickets. With the Espai Galobardes, also in the parish, it’s €7.50, and with the Bassella Motorcycle Museum, €15. The museum is also part of the Passmuseu, the card that gives 50% off three museums around the country. The rest are rounded up in museums in Andorra.

Half a day in the centre of Canillo

The museum fits neatly into a car-free morning in the village. I’d start at Sant Serni church, free and open every day until seven in the evening, whose 27 m bell tower the council calls the tallest in the valleys. Then the museum, which opens at 9:30 from Wednesday to Saturday. If you’ve time left, the Espai Galobardes, with 300 m² and more than 500 pieces by Francesc Galobardes, costs €7.50 in the combined ticket with the museum.

The tourist office in Canillo, which keeps the same daily hours as the church, sells tickets for the Tibetan bridge and can point you in the right direction if you’d like to finish the day on the Canillo Tibetan bridge. On a ski week it’s also a handy way to fill the afternoon after morning lessons, since the gondola deposits you right at the museum door.

Who would I send there?

Anyone with even a passing interest in engines, of any age, because the route is easy going on one floor and accessible for people with reduced mobility. With children it works well if they like vehicles, and since it’s free under 10 you’ve nothing to lose.

If you’re travelling with someone who couldn’t care less about bikes, I wouldn’t make the trip just for this. I’d pair it with the Palau de Gel ice rink a few steps away, or a look inside Sant Serni church. And if engines really are your thing, the National Car Museum is in the next parish down the valley, covered in the Andorra car museum guide.