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L'Ovella Negra Mountain Lodge

- Vall d´Incles, Andorra

The stone and timber exterior of L'Ovella Negra in the Vall d'Incles, Andorra, with the open-sided pavilion, festoon lights and hay bales on the grass. Caption: The lodge and its pavilion at the head of the valley, hay bales still on the grass.

Vall d´Incles

Andorra

Andorra is a small country of high parishes, Catalan-speaking, folded into the Pyrenees between France and Spain, and most of what people know of it happens on the main road. The Vall d'Incles is what happens when you turn off it. A short climb east of the village of Canillo, between El Tarter and Soldeu, a side road leaves the valley floor and runs three kilometres up a textbook glacial U, open at one end and closed at the other by the mountains. Pasture along the bottom, pine and fir up the sides, scattered stone bordes that once housed animals and hay, and a river working its way down through all of it.

It is a walking valley above everything else. Estany de Juclar, the largest lake in the country, lies at the top with its refuge. So do the Cabana Sorda lake and its glacial cirque, and Siscaró, and the Coll d'Incles at around 2,260 metres, where the path crosses into France and drops away to the Fontargent lakes. For anyone with less ambition, the Camí de l'Obac follows the river along the flat and asks almost nothing. Marmots whistle from the rocks and birds of prey work the pass.

Andorra protects it, which is the point. Private traffic is restricted through the high summer and an electric shuttle carries walkers up instead, so the valley stays as quiet as the map suggests. In winter, the snow closes the road altogether, while Grandvalira, the largest ski area in southern Europe, turns five kilometres away.

At the very top, where the tarmac gives out, there is one place to stay: L'Ovella Negra, four rooms, one fire, and a snowcat to fetch you in.

The stone and timber exterior of L'Ovella Negra in the Vall d'Incles, Andorra, with the open-sided pavilion, festoon lights and hay bales on the grass. Caption: The lodge and its pavilion at the head of the valley, hay bales still on the grass.
- Vall d´Incles, Andorra

L'Ovella Negra Mountain Lodge

A den for nomads and the hunters of uncomplicated luxury: four rooms, one fire, and no road at all once the Andorran snow arrives.

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