Sant Martí de la Cortinada, painted Romanesque and carved Baroque

Most visitors to Andorra see its Romanesque painting in a museum, peeled off its original wall. At Sant Martí de la Cortinada you don’t have to, because part of the murals are still where they were painted at the end of the twelfth century. In a village church with no entry charge, that strikes me as a small luxury.

A Romanesque church that grew in the Baroque

Sant Martí is a twelfth-century Romanesque church in the middle of La Cortinada, enlarged in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. museus.ad explains that during one of those makeovers it was turned to face north, and that the new high altar got a painted wooden altarpiece to Saint Martin in the 1600s. So from outside, Romanesque and Baroque sit together in a single building.

Andorra’s tourist board calls it one of the most representative buildings of the Ordino valley’s heritage and praises the way its stone architecture fits into the heart of the village. It doesn’t have the postcard silhouette of some other Andorran churches, but what matters is indoors.

What should you look for inside?

First, the murals. They’re the work of the so-called Master of La Cortinada, from the late twelfth century, and they survive in place, which the tourist board counts among the finest examples of Andorran Romanesque painting. If you’ve seen the Santa Coloma frescoes in their museum in Andorra la Vella, this is where you’ll feel the difference between a gallery and the wall itself.

Second, the woodwork. museus.ad singles out the seventeenth-century wooden furnishings with carved decoration, the carillon and the confessional, and the tourist board describes the carpentry as exceptional. The side chapels have Baroque altarpieces to the Virgin, Saint Anthony the Abbot and Our Lady of the Rosary.

Third, the iron. The wrought-iron grilles of the high altar and side chapels were made in Andorran forges, according to the council’s tourism website, which includes the church as a stop on the iron route. It’s the same iron that was dug out at the Llorts mine a few kilometres up the valley.

Opening times, tickets and getting there

It only opens in July and August. It opens morning and afternoon Tuesday to Saturday, with Saturday running on to 20:00, and on Sunday mornings only; Monday is closed. Exact hours are in the table. Entry and guided tours are free, and groups book through the government’s museum booking line on +376 839 760. The church isn’t adapted for wheelchair users. One point that confuses people planning a summer holiday is that Sant Martí isn’t on the list of churches in the government’s July and August guided programme, Romànic de bat a bat, which covers six other churches around the country. It runs its own free guided visits instead, so you don’t need that booking.

It’s on avinguda de Sant Martí, at the La Cortinada exit off the CG-3, facing the Cal Pal mill and sawmill. Without a car, museus.ad suggests bus L6 to Ordino and the summer parish bus, although L6 itself terminates in La Cortinada.

The other churches of the Ordino valley

Sant Martí is the painted highlight of a longer trail. The council’s tourism website maps a church route through Ordino and the upper valley with nine religious buildings, including Sant Corneli i Sant Cebrià in Ordino village, whose Romanesque Virgin is under half a metre tall; Sant Miquel in Ansalonga, with a late Gothic altarpiece; Sant Roc in Sornàs, from 1730; Sant Serni in Llorts, with its two bell gables; and Sant Pere in El Serrat. None has murals like La Cortinada’s, but walking between them on the royal road gives you a rounded picture of how the valley worshipped.

Where it fits in a day

I’d save it for after the summer mill tour, which finishes right at its door, and then cross the road to Cal Pal. For the country’s other churches, ranked by interest, see Romanesque churches in Andorra. And if you’re here out of season, at least walk over to see it from outside, with the valley behind. To check a particular year’s opening dates, call the Ordino tourist office (+376 878 173), and I’d ring before coming in June or September, when there’s most room for doubt.