As I approach the end of this 26-year journey, I find choosing a destination becomes more and more difficult. After all, one of my two rules was to go somewhere I’ve never been before. To be fair, there’s a whole lot of the world I still want to see, but I have found places I love and want to return to again and again.
About a year ago, when we were back and well recovered from our “W is for Water” cruise of the Greek Islands, I started looking for a place that starts with X. I’ve never had much of an urge to go to Mexico, so the Mayan sites beginning with X were easy to cross off the list. The same goes for all those exotic sounding places in China. My wanderlust doesn’t seem drawn there.
As I searched, I came across the intriguing-looking “Xixerella!” Where is THAT? A quick map search revealed Xixerella tucked in the Pyrenees Mountains in the tiny nation of Andorra. OH YEAH! That fits the bill. I spent the typical months looking into options: what is there to do in Xixerella? What’s nearby so my trip can be extended?
Ultimately, we decided to fly into nearby Barcelona, taking advantage of Turkish Airlines’ dazzling offer of a free hotel night if you book an overnight connection in Istanbul (More on that in a separate post.) We rented a car in Barcelona and visited Montserrat Abbey on our way to Xixerella.
Andorra is not a member of the EU and well-known for duty-free shopping, especially in its capital, Andorra la Vella. We battled the traffic through this town as we climbed the mountains in our little rental. Imagine my surprise when I realized the Andorrans replace the “ch” at the beginning of words with a “sh” sound (chalet, charcuterie, etc) with an “x”. SCORE! That adds a little credibility to the “X” trip.
There’s not much to Xixerella — it’s a skier’s dream destination in the winter, but the summer sees hikers and mountain bikers tackling the mountain paths and views. Since we hit the shoulder season of September we rented a small apartment for the night. We wandered through nearby La Massana and did a little shopping.
For dinner, we found a small restaurant near our apartment and perused the menu in search of something “local” to try. We ended up with an incredible meal, an appetizer of artichoke hearts wrapped in Iberian jowls followed by something called “Montaña.” The menu simply listed it as a rice dish. Google came through with this: A hearty rice with chicken, rabbit, and wild mushrooms. A comforting, risotto-like dish … not paella, but related. We decided that it sounded delicious, and we were absolutely right!!
It was so good we asked the chef for the recipe. He offered to write it down for us, but said it would be in Spanish. Thanks to Google Translate, that’s not a problem.
Our stay in Xixerella was short, but truly memorable. It checked the “X” box and more, setting the bar high for the rest of the trip. Stay tuned for additional “X” adventures!
There’s a whole world out there just waiting to be explored. Adventures can always start somewhere you’ve never heard of.
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