By all rights, Pas de la Casa should not be in Andorra at all. The highest pass in the country segregates this community from the rest of the country and, until the construction of the tunnel passing under the village, the route between the two was often impassable in winter.
The resort is near the source of a tributary valley of the Ariege, leading down to Foix and Toulouse, often shrouded in thick cloud. It is the highest resort in Andorra and often still has snow when it has all but gone from the rest of the mountain range.
Shopping is the favourite past-time of all visitors to Pas de la Casa. The ground floor of practically every building in the town houses a shop, if not occupied by a restaurant or hotel. Another, more sporty alternative for apr s-ski is the Sports and Socio-Cultural Complex of Pas de la Casa, a modern sports centre with weights work-out room, courts for various sports, library, video room, two heated swimming pools, jacuzzis and sauna. General entry fee is €7 . The water area is open from 8am to 10pm during the week and from 10am to 9pm at the weekend. The pool closes at 9.45pm. Tel. +376 856 830.
Pas de la Casa also has the Grandvalira ice-circuit, for driving on ice, and where this year visitors will be able to see great shows and enjoy the experience of driving on ice themselves. Further information from the Tourist Office in Pas de la Casa, Tel. +376 855 292. www.encamp.ad
Pas de la Casa is the great temple of nightlife not only of Grandvalira but of all the winter ski resorts in the Pyrenees. There to prove it, the dozens of pubs and discotheques with all types of music and multitudinous weekly parties during the ski season that attract young people from Barcelona, Madrid or France. To start off, the trend is to go to the KSB or El Tupí, both restaurants in the Plaza dels Vaquers that at midnight turn into pubs, highly recommended for the first drinks and to start warming up the atmosphere. Most of the fashionable spots are also concentrated in this square. This is the case of Amadeus, a disco-pub with house and rock music, Habana Club, a discotheque with good Latin atmosphere, and Underground, another discotheque playing house and dance music. One spot that becomes fit to bursting in the early hours is El Mexicano, in the street Bearn, with a small dance floor but excellent dance music; in the same street, in the basement of the Condor building, is Bilboard, a classic for night-birds, with more commercial music and an international mood. Another famous discotheque that is very popular amongst the Spaniards is Sabanah, in the basement of the Kandahar Hotel, with lots of atmosphere and commercial music. The Vertigo pub, in the Plaza dels Vaquers, also combines drinks with being a restaurant. The presence of numerous British tourists has led to a proliferation of English style pubs and bars with a very British feel, such as Avalanche (basement of the Himalaia Pas Hotel), Crack (in the Cristina Hotel), Kyu (Plaza dels Vaquers) or Milwaokee (Bearn street).
Even before the link with Soldeu, Pas de la Casa had the biggest ski area and highest lift-served terrain in Andorra. Now the two resorts have a combined 186km of pistes - that's about the same as some big-name Alpine resorts such as Kitzbühel, Wengen-Grindelwald and Les Deux Alpes.
Its first ski lift was opened in 1957 and currently it counts 31 lifts, 100 km of pistes and 6.26 km² of skiable terrain. The highest point is 2640 m. Its popularity has grown with the burgeoning ski and snowboard industry in the principality: it is the highest resort in Andorra, boasts the best snow record, and is the easiest to get to from Barcelona or Toulouse airports. Consequently it attracts a large number of British and Irish winter sports enthusiasts, as well as French and Spanish. It is also favoured for its southern latitude and duty-free status, which for many overcome the drawbacks of the long airport transfer times and brazen modernity of the place.
A secessionist movement based at Pas de la Casa has a very limited local support. The Front Envaliran de Libération, [F.E.L.], proposes a state in association with France. The F.E.L. is not recognized by the Andorran authorities, or by France, or any other country. Such limited support as it commands locally revolves mainly around local perceptions of administrative shortcomings and the area's relative geographical and linguistic isolation from the rest of Andorra: French is particularly widely spoken.
