Sant Vicenç d'Enclar, the church you can only reach on foot

From Santa Coloma you can see a granite crag guarding the mouth of the valley. Up there, some 150 metres above the valley floor, sits a small church with a round bell tower and no road to it. It’s Sant Vicenç d’Enclar, and for me it’s the prize for anyone who takes the southern end of Andorra la Vella seriously.

One of the oldest churches in the country

The official listing ranks it with Santa Coloma among the oldest churches in the Principality. It has a rectangular plan, a square apse and a round bell tower against the south wall of the nave, topped by a storey of large openings and another with seven small horseshoe-arched windows. If you’ve just seen Santa Coloma church, the family likeness of the towers is obvious.

The date is another matter. The church listing says it was probably built in the 9th century, in a style typical of Catalan and Languedoc architecture of the 10th century and earlier. The Comú’s tourism site calls it the oldest church in the country and places it in the 8th. With two official sources at odds, I won’t choose. It’s pre-Romanesque and among the oldest things in Andorra, and that’s enough.

It was restored some years ago to bring back its original look, according to the listing, and the capital’s tourist office dates a rebuilding to the early 1980s.

A church inside a fortress

What sets it apart is the setting. The church was part of the fortified complex of Enclar, which the official listing traces back to Visigothic times. Excavations have identified a religious area with the church and burials, small clusters of dwellings with their outbuildings, and the wall with its defensive tower.

The capital’s tourist office describes the Roc d’Enclar as an open book on Andorra’s history and a strategic lookout, permanently lived in for centuries. The official sources give different dates for the fortress, so I won’t repeat them. What does make sense once you’re up there is why anyone wanted to watch the valley from this spot. Below you run the main road and the river, the old route between the Seu d’Urgell side and the heart of the country, and from the rock you can follow both for a long way. It’s the same logic that put a church, houses and a wall together on one hilltop.

How do you get up to Sant Vicenç d’Enclar?

On foot only, and the listing is frank that finding it takes a bit of effort. From the centre of the capital, head towards Spain on Avinguda de Santa Coloma, which becomes Avinguda d’Enclar, turn right at the roundabout by the petrol station onto Carrer dels Barrers and follow it to the end, where there’s a small car park. The path starts there.

For something more, the same path leads to the Sant Vicenç d’Enclar via ferrata. Graded moderate by the tourist board, it climbs 190 m over 270 m of cable, well equipped, set in holm-oak woodland between steep crags, facing east, free to use and topping out at 1,190 m. It allows 15 minutes for the approach, two hours on the route and 40 minutes back. For others around the country, see via ferratas in Andorra.

The Enclar valley behind it

The crag is also the gateway to the Vall d’Enclar, one of the most ecologically valuable corners of the parish. The tourist board suggests an easy walk from the end of Carrer dels Barrers to the Prats d’Enclar, 1.72 km with 380 m of ascent, past dry-stone walls and back the same way. The capital’s tourist office rates it among the best places in Andorra for spotting native wildlife.

As for timing, the tourist board’s general advice for mountain walking is late June to late September above 1,700 m, stretching to May and October if conditions allow. Enclar is lower than that, but I’d still avoid the midday heat in summer and ice in winter. More routes are in my guide to hiking in Andorra. And if you come down with daylight to spare, the Arc Patrimonial continues down the valley to la Margineda, with the medieval bridge and the rock shelter, rounding off the parish from end to end.