Andorra
Most of Andorr's resorts were once small mountain villages which have grown in recent years due to skiing.
In recent years the resorts have all joined together so that your ski pass covers neighbouring areas. As a result there are now two large alpine skiing areas known as Vallnord and Grandvalira.
Vallnord covers Arcalis and the Arinsal-Pal ski area. Arcalis is quite distant away from Arinsal-Pal but the latter have been joined up in recent years by a cable car connecting the two ski areas. The Arisnal-Pal ski area is directly accessible from La Massana right from the middle of the town. 93km (58 mi) of pistes.
- Arcalis - ski area located at the head of the valley from El Serrat
- Arinsal - skiing resort part of the Arinsal Pal ski area. Also known as Vallnord which means Valley North in English
- Pal - skiing resort part of the Arinsal Pal ski area.
Grandvalira covers Soldeu and Pas de la Casa. The Soldeu ski area is also accessible from El Tarter, Encamp and Canillo. This quite cleverly has opened up these areas to cope with the influence of visitors without putting all the strain on Soldeu. It has 210km of ski slopes between 1710-2640m. The area of Grandvalira is about 1,926 hectares, and it's divided into 6 different sectors. These are (from left to right on their piste map):
- Pas de la Casa - skiing resort located right on the French border with a good sized town that has plenty of duty free shops, hotels and restaurants.
- Grau Roig - skiing resort only with a large car park and a hotel
- Soldeu - skiing resort in a small town with hotels, restaurants and shops
- El Tarter - skiing resort in a small town with hotels, restaurants and shops
- Canillo - skiing resort accessed by gondola from a medium sized town with hotels, restaurants and shops
- Encamp - a large town with hotels, restaurants and shops connected to the Grandvalira ski slopes by the 6.1km Funicamp gondola - was the longest in Europe but maybe surpassed now.
- La Rabassa is a cross-country (Nordic) skiing area in southern Andorra above the town of Sant Julia de Loria.