Sant Miquel d'Engolasters, a small nave under a very tall tower

Andorra has more complete and better-known Romanesque churches, but few with an outline as odd as this one. A low, modest nave, and beside it a 17 m tower that looks as if it belongs to another building. Sant Miquel d’Engolasters stands on the lake road above Escaldes, and for me it’s a stop you shouldn’t skip if you’re heading up to Engolasters.

A tower too big for its nave

It was built at some point in the 12th century, when other churches such as Sant Joan de Caselles in Canillo also went up. It keeps most of its original fabric and follows the classic Andorran Romanesque plan, a rectangular nave, a semicircular apse, a pitched roof and a tower belfry. The porch came later.

What sets it apart is the proportion. Andorra Turisme speaks of a striking contrast in height between nave and tower, and it’s right. I’d start by looking at it from the road, with the pine-covered slope behind, because it’s from outside that you see what makes it different.

The heads in the bell tower

Right at the top, between the arches of the paired windows, are some carved heads. Andorra Turisme counts them among the few examples of Romanesque sculpture that survive in Andorra, a country where Romanesque is mostly about architecture and painting. They’re small, so look carefully. It’s the detail I like most about the whole church.

What’s inside Sant Miquel d’Engolasters?

Inside, the apse carries a Maiestas Domini surrounded by the symbols of the four evangelists, with the archangel Michael, the church’s patron, merged with the symbol of Saint Matthew. It’s the work of the Master of Santa Coloma, a 12th-century painter whose name points to the Santa Coloma church. You should know before you go in that the original is kept in the National Art Museum of Catalonia in Barcelona, and what you see here is an exact copy. The rest of the nave is plain, with a timber ceiling and whitewashed walls.

Entry is free. Andorra Turisme says the interior can be visited in summer, and in July and August the church joins Romànic de bat a bat, a government programme of guided visits to six Andorran churches. They run from Tuesday to Sunday at the times in the table above and are booked on (+376) 839 760. Outside summer, I’d phone first, because the official listing gives no times outside summer, and it would be a shame to drive up and find the door locked. The outside, tower and carved heads included, is there to see whenever you like. My guide to Romanesque churches in Andorra covers the other five in the programme.

Sant Miquel among Andorra’s Romanesque churches

By Andorra Turisme’s count there are over 30 Romanesque churches across Andorra, and elsewhere it speaks of more than 40 churches, chapels and monuments from that period. Almost all are free to visit; the exception is Santa Coloma, which you see together with the Espai Columba museum. Sant Miquel is one of the six in Romànic de bat a bat, alongside Sant Joan de Caselles, Meritxell, Sant Romà de les Bons, Sant Climent de Pal and Santa Coloma, which says something about its standing.

The same parish offers the perfect comparison. Sant Romà dels Vilars is pre-Romanesque, from around the 10th century, with a rectangular apse and walls of rough stone. Sant Miquel, two centuries on, already has the rounded apse, the Lombard tower and the wall painting. If you have a morning in Escaldes and an interest in art, I’d see both, the older one first. They make a far better pairing than rushing round half a dozen churches across the country in a single day.

Making a morning of it

The church stands beside the CS-200, the Engolasters road, which you join at the first roundabout on the CG-2 in Escaldes. Engolasters lake is a few minutes further up, so I’d do both together.

If you’d rather walk, an inter-parish path of about 12 km and 4 hours links Sant Miquel de Prats in Canillo with Sant Miquel d’Engolasters, waymarked with yellow dots. And from the Engolasters plateau, paths lead into the Madriu valley, so the church can be the start of a full mountain day.