Andorra's Romanesque churches, valley by valley

Andorra is small, but when it comes to Romanesque it punches well above its weight. According to Andorra Turisme, the country has more than 30 Romanesque churches, most of them from the 11th and 12th centuries, and nearly all are free to visit. The hard part isn’t finding them, it’s choosing. This page is the overview; each major church has its own page with opening times, prices where they exist and practical details.

What does an Andorran Romanesque church look like?

Almost always small and plain. The tourist board describes a single nave, an apse and an entrance porch, very little ornament and a building that sits naturally in the mountain landscape. The giveaway is the bell tower, either a proper tower or a bell gable, used to signal between villages and for defence. Inside there were brightly coloured paintings, many by followers of the great Catalan masters, and many churches still hold Baroque altarpieces from the 17th and 18th centuries.

Some are part of the World Heritage bid for «the material evidence of the construction of the state in the Pyrenees». For centuries they were also each village’s only communal building, where grazing rights and taxes were argued over. The reversible benches you’ll see in some of them are the proof.

The ones I wouldn’t skip

First, Sant Joan de Caselles church in Canillo, with its Lombard tower, two porches and a 12th-century stucco Christ framed by a painted Crucifixion, found buried under the floor in the 1960s. Second, Santa Coloma church, pre-Romanesque in origin and home to the country’s only round bell tower, visited with the Espai Columba. That’s where you see the original frescoes, and in the church a projection puts them back where they belong.

Third comes Sant Miquel d’Engolasters, with a 17 m tower topped by carved heads, and fourth, in the south, Sant Serni de Nagol, whose consecration dates to 1055, painted in an almost childlike hand. The rest of the ranking above is just as worthwhile if you have more days to spare.

The Romànic de bat a bat, July and August

This is the best way to understand them. In July and August the government opens six churches with a guide, namely Santa Coloma, Sant Miquel d’Engolasters, Sant Climent de Pal, Sant Romà de les Bons, Meritxell Sanctuary and Sant Joan de Caselles. Visits run Tuesday to Friday, 10am to 2pm and 3pm to 7pm, until 8pm on Saturday and on Sunday mornings, and you book on (+376) 839 760. Outside those months, Andorra Turisme points to the museus.ad calendar and each parish tourist office, and many smaller churches publish no hours at all.

If it rains or you’re short of time

There are two indoor shortcuts. The Escaldes-Engordany Art Centre on Avinguda Carlemany holds a collection of models of Andorran Romanesque buildings and is free, so in half an hour you get a feel for the churches you’ll later see for real. And the Espai Columba explains how Romanesque arrived in Andorra and how to read its wall paintings, with the originals from Santa Coloma and two fragments from Sant Esteve. I’d start with one of them before hitting the road, because the churches make far more sense once you know what used to cover their walls.

Grouping them by valley

I wouldn’t mix them up. One day for the Valira d’Orient valley, with Santa Eulàlia d’Encamp, Sant Romà de les Bons, Meritxell Sanctuary and Caselles. Another for the north, with Sant Martí de la Cortinada, Sant Climent de Pal and Sant Cristòfol d’Anyós. And half a day for the centre and south, with Santa Coloma, Sant Esteve, Engolasters and Nagol. The treasures that left the churches, from Encamp’s sacred art to the Santa Coloma frescoes, are covered in museums in Andorra.

Curiosities that change the visit

The tourist board has a list I’d read before going. In 1785 Bishop García de Montenegro had several paintings in Sant Romà de les Bons erased as indecent. In 1898 shepherds kept their flocks inside Sant Miquel d’Engolasters. Sant Esteve in Andorra la Vella owes its look to Puig i Cadafalch’s restoration of 1940. And not everything that looks Romanesque is, because building methods changed little until the 20th century, as Santa Creu in Canillo and Sant Pere d’Aixirivall show.