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Have you heard of Andorra? · Ridiculous History

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Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Ye
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Speaker 1: welcome back to the show Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as
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Speaker 1: always so much for tuning in. Let's kick it off
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Speaker 1: with a special thanks to our super producer and research
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Speaker 1: associate for this episode, Mr Max Williams. No no no
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Speaker 1: no no no no no no no no Ah, yes, Ululation. Indeed,
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Speaker 1: uh they call me ben uh Noel. Today we're talking
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Speaker 1: about one of my favorite things, tiny nations. Micro even
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Speaker 1: this Yeah, this like a micro nation. It is definitely
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Speaker 1: one of the smallest nations in the world that is
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Speaker 1: still considered a nation. As a matter of fact, if
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Speaker 1: you were based in the US, you might not have
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Speaker 1: heard of a little old place called and Dora. And Uh.
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Speaker 1: I like the way Mac. I like the way you
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Speaker 1: were playing with the research or the title of this research. Uh.
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Speaker 1: And I don't know if you need to bleep this
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Speaker 1: part is what the hell is? Andorra Hey, what is that?
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Speaker 1: I had never heard of I've heard of some micro
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Speaker 1: nations and I'm like, I have never heard of this one.
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Speaker 1: And I started researching. I'm like, where is this one?
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Speaker 1: I know where these two other countries are, but I've
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Speaker 1: never heard of this one. Yeah, it's a it's a
1:40
Speaker 1: tiny independent thing called a co principality in Europe. If
1:46
Speaker 1: you look at a map, you'll see that it's it's
1:51
Speaker 1: kind of plot there in the southern peaks of the Pyrenees.
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Speaker 1: It is bordered by France on the north and east
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Speaker 1: and Spain to the south and west. So it's kind
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Speaker 1: of like, imagine what's a good familiar border. Okay, imagine
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Speaker 1: the border of the United States and Mexico. Right, that's
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Speaker 1: a just straight shot across the continent. What if there
2:15
Speaker 1: was another little place there and it was called um,
2:19
Speaker 1: I'm just thinking it was called text Mexico, and it
2:23
Speaker 1: was it was tiny, and the people who lived there
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Speaker 1: spoke maybe English or Spanish whatever their lingual franc is.
2:30
Speaker 1: But it's still a different place. And the rivers flow
2:33
Speaker 1: with Texas, Margharitas and Queso and chips Um. Indeed, uh,
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Speaker 1: you know, it's funny, Andra I. I only ever really
2:44
Speaker 1: was aware of it because of the name of a
2:47
Speaker 1: really great album by the artist Caribou, which is sort
2:50
Speaker 1: of like a one of several projects by the Canadian
2:54
Speaker 1: musician Dan Saith. And he has an album called Andorra,
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Speaker 1: and it's like super fulky electronic kind of dream pop.
3:01
Speaker 1: And the cover does appear to be some sort of
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Speaker 1: vaguely European uh tulip be kind of scene, sort of
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Speaker 1: a landscape, So maybe there was really no specific thematic
3:15
Speaker 1: tie to this part of the world, but that is
3:17
Speaker 1: where I first heard then, and it is spelled exactly
3:19
Speaker 1: the same, so I believe it has to be with
3:21
Speaker 1: the double R. Yes, yeah, just so. Now. And Dora
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Speaker 1: is not a member of the European Union as we record,
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Speaker 1: but it has been a member of the United Nations
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Speaker 1: since it's a blink and you miss its spot on
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Speaker 1: the map. But it's quite unique. It is. Let's see,
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Speaker 1: it's about three times the size of Liechtenstein, which is
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Speaker 1: even smaller, yes, and also a country. It is only
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Speaker 1: about a hundred and eighty one square miles, or for
3:49
Speaker 1: everybody outside the US and the Maybia four hundred and
3:52
Speaker 1: sixty eight square kilometers. It's also two point five times
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Speaker 1: the size of d C. But it has a really
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Speaker 1: small population seventies thousand, five hundred people. Our question today,
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Speaker 1: how did and Dora become a thing? Sometimes you have
4:11
Speaker 1: to look at places like Monaco or Liechtenstein or San
4:14
Speaker 1: Marino and and Dora and say, huh, how how how
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Speaker 1: is this the thing? Especially given that European countries spent
4:24
Speaker 1: so much of history beefing and trying to conquer each
4:27
Speaker 1: other's territory. What made these scrappy, little little countries survive
4:32
Speaker 1: all those wars of conquest? I guess we have to
4:36
Speaker 1: start at the very beginning, right, Yeah, I would. I
4:39
Speaker 1: would also just hazard a guest early on and just
4:41
Speaker 1: kind of by being not that strategically important and uh
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Speaker 1: so small blanket, you might miss it. Yeah. Yeah, that's
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Speaker 1: why it's not surprising that a lot of people don't
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Speaker 1: learn too much about and Dora if there not growing
4:57
Speaker 1: up in you know, in the region where in door
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Speaker 1: is Low caterd So we know that for thousands and
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Speaker 1: thousands of years people have occupied the valleys of modern
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Speaker 1: day and Dora, and you can find artifacts dating as
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Speaker 1: far back as the Neolithic period and even the Bronze Age.
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Speaker 1: That's right, and uh, it is conjectured by many, you
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Speaker 1: know experts in this region that the aboriginal Um people
5:26
Speaker 1: who occupied this land originally were actually relatives of the
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Speaker 1: Basque people of northern Spain, which has kind of a
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Speaker 1: dialect of Spanish and its sound cuisine, which is wonderful.
5:37
Speaker 1: By the way, if you ever in Atlanta, highly recommend
5:40
Speaker 1: checking out the restaurants, Cooks and Soldiers. Yes, indeed, very
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Speaker 1: very good Basque cuisine. And the word and Dora is
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Speaker 1: believed to have been derived from the Basque language. I
5:50
Speaker 1: believe I missed book earlier and saying that it was
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Speaker 1: a dialect of Spanish is in fact it's very own language.
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Speaker 1: So this was a kind of tribally settled region in
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Speaker 1: the country UM. And that includes other tribes such as
6:05
Speaker 1: the Iberians from the south and also the Andesinos. So
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Speaker 1: at some point we do have indoor occupying a admittedly
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Speaker 1: small section of the Roman Empire. Uh. And when that
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Speaker 1: went belly up, as we know um tends to happen
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Speaker 1: with these massive empires, and Dora kind of did become
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Speaker 1: a bit of a of a gateway for tribes to
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Speaker 1: the north, some of these by barbarian hordes to pass
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Speaker 1: through from Gaul into Iberia. UM. And we had tribes
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Speaker 1: such as the Visigoths, uh, the Allen's and the Vandals
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Speaker 1: leaving behind evidence of these of these trips. So yeah,
6:49
Speaker 1: of my conjecture earlier too, probably a little not exactly
6:53
Speaker 1: on this was if a small window something that could
6:58
Speaker 1: have been considered helpful to control or at least to
7:01
Speaker 1: just kind of blast through, because it was kind of
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Speaker 1: a path through these different regions. Yeah, yeah, and so
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Speaker 1: it became, as you said, kind of a gateway. It's
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Speaker 1: also been independent for quite some time. Traditionally, you'll see
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Speaker 1: the independence of Andorra ascribed to the one and only Charlemagne,
7:19
Speaker 1: not our pal from the Breakfast Club, Charlemagne the God,
7:22
Speaker 1: but his namesake, the ancient ruler Charlemagne. Charlemagne took the
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Speaker 1: region back from Muslim forces in eight zero three CE
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Speaker 1: Common era, and his son Louis also known as Louis
7:40
Speaker 1: the First or Louis the Pious, gave the inhabitants of
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Speaker 1: the area what was called a Charter of Liberties, recognizing
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Speaker 1: some of their autonomy. Charlemagne's grandson, Charles the Second, gave
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Speaker 1: and Dora to the counts of urgel U, R, G
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Speaker 1: E L. And this was something This sounds weird when
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Speaker 1: we talk about it in the modern day, but it
8:03
Speaker 1: happened pretty often, not just in Europe. It happened pretty
8:07
Speaker 1: often where some conquering force or governing force would say,
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Speaker 1: I give this to you. I bequeathed this to you.
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Speaker 1: And this meant that the people who quote unquote owned
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Speaker 1: the area would be able to um get proceeds from
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Speaker 1: taxes and levies and stuff like that. So and Dora
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Speaker 1: was passed from the counts of Urgel to the bishops
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Speaker 1: of Ergel and no spoiler alert, the people living there
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Speaker 1: had no say whatsoever in this. That's the This is
8:38
Speaker 1: way before voting was a big big thing there. They
8:42
Speaker 1: then had like a spin doctor situation that to Prince's song,
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Speaker 1: you know, like yeah, yeah, Princess udor whate in Spain,
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Speaker 1: what in France? And Dora owes their allegiance to both
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Speaker 1: of them because Spain and France started fighting over who
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Speaker 1: was the head han show of Andorra And you know,
9:02
Speaker 1: you think maybe it's a situation where each is getting
9:05
Speaker 1: Like I guess you don't really think of princes getting
9:08
Speaker 1: a salary per se. It's more of a birthright. And
9:10
Speaker 1: I guess I really thought about that, Ben, you ever
9:12
Speaker 1: thought about how monarchs get paid. I always assume it's
9:14
Speaker 1: like with tribute are sort of like you know, uh,
9:17
Speaker 1: what do you call when gangsters go door to door
9:20
Speaker 1: and get there. That's that's how I've always sort of
9:26
Speaker 1: likened the monarchies to that. But it was an issue
9:29
Speaker 1: because these two princes, I guess maybe each of them
9:32
Speaker 1: did half a job, but they both got a full paycheck. Yeah. Yeah,
9:37
Speaker 1: it's It's not great for the folks of Andra because
9:41
Speaker 1: the Spanish Bishop of Urgell and the French head of
9:44
Speaker 1: state got, like you said, an annual payment, a token tribute.
9:48
Speaker 1: And this unique geopolitical tension allowed and or to remain
9:53
Speaker 1: free for so long. They gained independence in twelve seventy eight,
9:59
Speaker 1: and for the most part they've been independent ever since,
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Speaker 1: except for one one really weird period of time, and
10:06
Speaker 1: that was in eighteen thirteen when the First French Empire,
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Speaker 1: under the leadership of Napoleon the First annexed Catalonia and
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Speaker 1: divided it into sections into fourths with Andorra along with
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Speaker 1: that Bishop of Urgul, which I keep wanting to say,
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Speaker 1: Rkle but that's fine, I will not I will I
10:26
Speaker 1: will resist that temptation becoming part of one of the
10:30
Speaker 1: fourth being the district of pug Ardia pug Chiza. That's
10:37
Speaker 1: what I'm gonna say. And then when Napoleon the first
10:40
Speaker 1: was in fact defeated. This was undone. Yeah yeah, like
10:46
Speaker 1: a lot of the things Napoleon did as soon as
10:50
Speaker 1: he was out of power. Uh, the European status quo
10:53
Speaker 1: and powers that be with nope, psych fake out back
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Speaker 1: to normal and since eighteen o six the rights of
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Speaker 1: this co principality have belonged to the French head of
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Speaker 1: state and they're technically now held by the French President. Look,
11:08
Speaker 1: with all this stuff, all this bureaucratic gobbledegook, it's understandable
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Speaker 1: that it took the enduring government a while to move
11:15
Speaker 1: toward a more modern political system. They actually had a
11:19
Speaker 1: feudal system of government until nineteen ninety three. That's when
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Speaker 1: they adopted a constitution that knocked down the power of
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Speaker 1: these co princes and established stuff that we think of
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Speaker 1: as basic in democracy today. The day one things an executive,
11:36
Speaker 1: legislative and judicial branch. And then that same year they
11:39
Speaker 1: joined the U N and then i think the year
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Speaker 1: after they joined the Council of Europe, but not the
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Speaker 1: European Union just yet. Okay, so you may be asking yourself,
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Speaker 1: why do we care? I mean, it's tiny, that's definitely
11:59
Speaker 1: a pet interest of this program. But there are also
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Speaker 1: some other features of andor in terms of the geography
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Speaker 1: and the economics of the region that are pretty pretty
12:08
Speaker 1: neat um so and Dora basically is made up of
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Speaker 1: these little little packets of mountain valleys. Remember we talked
12:16
Speaker 1: about how the valleys have been occupied, you know, for
12:18
Speaker 1: a long time. There streams. The streams of these valleys
12:22
Speaker 1: actually form the Valira River, not the Valerian River for
12:28
Speaker 1: the Game of Thrones House of the Dragon's focus if
12:30
Speaker 1: that's not real, um spoiler alert. The Valera River pretty
12:34
Speaker 1: close sounding though. Two of those uh streams that that
12:38
Speaker 1: form that larger body of water, the mad Drew and
12:42
Speaker 1: the Para Fizza, they actually flow into the Madriu Parafita
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Speaker 1: Clara valley that occupies about a tenth of the entire
12:49
Speaker 1: land mass of Andorra. It's gorgeous a at these glaciers
12:53
Speaker 1: and these valleys, the very steep valleys and all of
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Speaker 1: these really lush kind of open pastures and this area.
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Speaker 1: If anyone's familiar with an ESCO World Heritage Sites, those
13:03
Speaker 1: are cloud you know, parts of the world that are
13:06
Speaker 1: you know, points of interest or remarkable in some way
13:08
Speaker 1: or have some sort of historical meaning. Um. This was
13:12
Speaker 1: added to the UNESCO World Heritage Site List in two
13:15
Speaker 1: thousand four. But the interesting part is this that with
13:18
Speaker 1: all of that glory, all of that you know, visual splendor,
13:22
Speaker 1: we do have some pretty, you know, kind of harsh landscapes,
13:27
Speaker 1: I guess glacier glacial landscapes not necessarily the most cultivatable,
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Speaker 1: you know, for for agriculture. So only a very small
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Speaker 1: percentage of the lands in Andorra can be used for livestock.
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Speaker 1: So the actual economy really is centered more on sheep
13:46
Speaker 1: and harvesting pretty minor amounts of wheat, grapes, olives, tobacco,
13:53
Speaker 1: and potatoes. Yeah, and you know, it's ridiculous historians, you'll
13:58
Speaker 1: notice a couple of those things are things that came
14:02
Speaker 1: from you know, the North and South American continents, potatoes
14:05
Speaker 1: and tobacco in particular. And this is this is something
14:09
Speaker 1: that a lot of mountainous regions struggle with the idea
14:12
Speaker 1: of arable land because they were victims of geography there.
14:19
Speaker 1: To be quite honest about it, their industry was limited
14:22
Speaker 1: to processing this stuff and then to making handicrafts. But
14:27
Speaker 1: they also didn't have very much in the way of
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Speaker 1: taxes and they didn't have a lot of custom duties.
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Speaker 1: And that continues today, which means and Dora has become
14:38
Speaker 1: this big clearing house for retail trade, and that means
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Speaker 1: it's huge for tourism. It's huge for shoppers. People living
14:47
Speaker 1: along the French or Spanish border might say, oh, let's
14:51
Speaker 1: let's pop over to Andorra. I don't know why they
14:54
Speaker 1: have a British accent. Okay, backstory, I'm making a backstory.
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Speaker 1: They're they're British retirees and they live thick, live in
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Speaker 1: Spain and they go to Andorra to get the cheap
15:03
Speaker 1: cigarettes or the cheap booze. Can we also say, really quick,
15:06
Speaker 1: just addressing British listeners, we know we're doing a British
15:10
Speaker 1: accent that doesn't exist anymore. That's why we're doing it.
15:13
Speaker 1: It's better to do that one than to try and approximate,
15:16
Speaker 1: like we're not, you know, being actors. Here. We're doing
15:19
Speaker 1: a silly bit of a voice that doesn't exist because
15:22
Speaker 1: it's funny. I do. I can do yeah, true story, folks.
15:28
Speaker 1: I can do passable, much more realistic British accents, but
15:31
Speaker 1: we like the fun ones the same way that your
15:33
Speaker 1: favorite uh British comics might like the fun American accents. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
15:42
Speaker 1: like Harlan Oh gosh, yeah, we need we need no
15:50
Speaker 1: offense and if anything, we're doing it to prevent offense.
15:53
Speaker 1: But I have noticed a few emails or it's like Jesus, guys,
15:56
Speaker 1: no one talks that we we we get it. So yes,
15:59
Speaker 1: think but this and all is mended, so on and
16:01
Speaker 1: so on. All right, here's the thing though. Tourism is
16:05
Speaker 1: big now. Of course being mountainous, it's also a huge
16:10
Speaker 1: draw for people enjoy winter sports skiing, snowboarding, etcetera. The
16:15
Speaker 1: construction industry has been doing well because of all the tourism.
16:20
Speaker 1: And uh, there's one line that might sound like a throwaway,
16:23
Speaker 1: but you need to think about it. The banking sector
16:26
Speaker 1: is also economically significant. This is not unusual with a
16:31
Speaker 1: lot of the tiny, tiny European nations. And and and
16:36
Speaker 1: Or is the sixth smallest European nation. And we we
16:40
Speaker 1: talked about a member of the European Union. What do
16:43
Speaker 1: they have like Andoran currency. No, they basically used the euro.
16:48
Speaker 1: They don't have the Andoran pound. They basically if you
16:52
Speaker 1: go to a shop, you're gonna you're gonna use a euro,
16:55
Speaker 1: you know, you could you could try to make an
16:58
Speaker 1: indoor and pounds, but it probably counts is counterfeiting. It
17:02
Speaker 1: counts is counterfeiting whatever. So in I think July two
17:07
Speaker 1: thousand eleven, they made a deal with the European Union
17:11
Speaker 1: that made the euro its official currency, but they can't
17:14
Speaker 1: issue their own bank notes. There's also no railway system.
17:19
Speaker 1: There is one small airport. You know, there's a university
17:24
Speaker 1: that was established in It's not a bad place to live.
17:28
Speaker 1: And you know what's neat about this because it's landlocked,
17:31
Speaker 1: it's insulated. It's like sandwiched in between Spain and France.
17:36
Speaker 1: I would argue, even if it's not on paper part
17:40
Speaker 1: of the European Union, it functionally is, right, Like maybe
17:44
Speaker 1: that's just a way to get out of taxation requirements. Yeah,
17:48
Speaker 1: I mean that's what allows them to have their essential
17:50
Speaker 1: like duty free lounge. You know, like there's sort of
17:54
Speaker 1: this like liminal space that exists for you know, vacationing
17:57
Speaker 1: and shopping mainly. It's yeah lutely that would be they'd
18:01
Speaker 1: be kind of sunk without it. Yeah, it's almost like
18:05
Speaker 1: the duty free store for Spain and France. And I
18:08
Speaker 1: think we gotta go back. Uh, we gotta go back,
18:11
Speaker 1: you guys to this weird governmental structure. And Max know
18:16
Speaker 1: this stood out for you too. So they're represented internationally
18:21
Speaker 1: by these co princes. That's what makes them a co principality. Uh,
18:26
Speaker 1: they're headed their government is headed by the delegates from
18:31
Speaker 1: these areas. So right now two thousand and twenty two,
18:36
Speaker 1: the nation of Andorra is led by two foreign individuals,
18:41
Speaker 1: h bishop from a city in Spain and the President
18:44
Speaker 1: of France. That means the leaders of Andorra but are
18:47
Speaker 1: currently Joan Anriq Vives uh Is Cecilia and Emmanuel mccron uh.
18:53
Speaker 1: And neither of them live there. I'm just gonna put
18:57
Speaker 1: that out there. No, they still don't, but there are
19:00
Speaker 1: some remnants that that might seem a little more like
19:03
Speaker 1: Lord of the Rings and kind of they have something
19:06
Speaker 1: called the General Council of the Valleys because twenty eight
19:10
Speaker 1: member body responsible for kind of you know, administering internal
19:15
Speaker 1: functions of you know, government, both as a kind of
19:19
Speaker 1: an informal legislature and a cabinet that has headed up
19:23
Speaker 1: by a prime minister. Yeah. Yeah, so they have so
19:26
Speaker 1: like despite the the strange past of their government. They
19:31
Speaker 1: do have elections, they do vote for these representatives, and
19:37
Speaker 1: you know that you can you can learn easily about
19:39
Speaker 1: the cycle of how their elections work. Right now, most
19:44
Speaker 1: of the real power has been transferred from those co
19:48
Speaker 1: princes to that General Council, and they do have universal suffrage, etcetera, etcetera,
19:53
Speaker 1: so they are modernized. But Max pointed out something really interesting.
20:00
Speaker 1: I liked the Council because it's such a small country.
20:04
Speaker 1: The Council is about point three six of the country's population.
20:09
Speaker 1: For comparison, the United States UH Congress, that's four in
20:14
Speaker 1: thirty five House of rep members and a hundred senators.
20:18
Speaker 1: That's about point zero zero zero one six per cent
20:22
Speaker 1: of the US population. So lest you cast dispersions on andorra,
20:27
Speaker 1: dear American friends, remember that their government is, you know,
20:32
Speaker 1: arguably way more representative than the US government. They probably
20:36
Speaker 1: all know each other too, That's how I feel. I
20:38
Speaker 1: feel like they know each other. Now. They can raise
20:40
Speaker 1: money through taxation, they've got independent judges, people can form
20:44
Speaker 1: trade unions and political parties. Still, though those co princes,
20:49
Speaker 1: those two foreign individuals are the constitutional heads of state,
20:54
Speaker 1: like uh, several other European countries, this is primarily a
20:58
Speaker 1: ceremonial role sort of. How like in the United Kingdom,
21:02
Speaker 1: the late queen now king that the crown basically, uh
21:06
Speaker 1: can just change any law they want, but there's this
21:10
Speaker 1: implied understanding that they'll never actually do it. You know.
21:14
Speaker 1: It's it's that kind of thing. It's a ceremonial rule. Also,
21:17
Speaker 1: if we want to backtrack to the representation, I got
21:20
Speaker 1: a weird United States example. Do you guys know about
21:23
Speaker 1: the massive House of representatives they have in New Hampshire.
21:27
Speaker 1: I've heard a little yeah. I mean, you know, like
21:31
Speaker 1: with the past election and stuff. You know, just watching
21:33
Speaker 1: some news conference and someone's talking about this, there is
21:36
Speaker 1: four hundred members in the New Hampshire House Representatives. That
21:40
Speaker 1: little tiny state has four hundred members. It's is I
21:44
Speaker 1: got the Wikipedia page pulled up right now. It is
21:46
Speaker 1: one legislator for every three thousand, three hundred residents. Well
21:50
Speaker 1: that's great. Yeah, it's weird. It's like New Hampshire. I
21:54
Speaker 1: think it's like twice the size of Pennsylvania's. I mean,
21:57
Speaker 1: isn't that the closest thing to represent true representative democracy
22:01
Speaker 1: that you can think of? Mm hmm it's pretty close.
22:04
Speaker 1: But granted, I mean granted, it's okay, I'll end it there. No, no,
22:12
Speaker 1: it just had to no plun left behind X And
22:21
Speaker 1: if you're picturing you know this, if you're picturing like
22:25
Speaker 1: the first Pink Panther movie, kind of like you know,
22:27
Speaker 1: opulent Europeans assembled in Swiss chalets with their finest you know,
22:35
Speaker 1: wool sweaters, woolen sweaters and booties. Uh, you're probably not
22:39
Speaker 1: too far off. Um. It is located high in the
22:41
Speaker 1: Eastern Pyrenees Mountains, right there between France and Spain. It
22:45
Speaker 1: does have this kind of lovely mountain scenery, but it
22:48
Speaker 1: is very well known for its winter sporting opportunities. You've
22:54
Speaker 1: got skiers and snowboarders that come there. There's a tiny
22:57
Speaker 1: little town called in Camp kind of fun, and that
23:01
Speaker 1: is a base for the Pause de la Casa and
23:05
Speaker 1: the Grau Roy ski areas. Um. You also have another
23:10
Speaker 1: giant ski attraction called Grand Valira, which learns a reference
23:15
Speaker 1: to that river between Andorra la Vela and Escaldes. So
23:20
Speaker 1: if you're not into skiing and showing off your finest cashmere,
23:25
Speaker 1: why not check out some sight seeing in the kind
23:29
Speaker 1: of you know, this sort of set in time, kind
23:31
Speaker 1: of frozen in time places like where you know these villages.
23:35
Speaker 1: One such example would be El Serat, which is high
23:38
Speaker 1: in the mountains, and La Cortinada, where you can see
23:42
Speaker 1: a beautiful church called the Marte de la Cortinada. Um
23:48
Speaker 1: and these are very picturesque, charming little bergs right northwest
23:53
Speaker 1: of the capital city. Yeah, yeah, yeah, this is This
23:58
Speaker 1: is cool too because for p people who live in
24:00
Speaker 1: the region, it's an awesome day trip. You're only a
24:05
Speaker 1: few hours from Barcelona, like three hours drive from Barcelona
24:10
Speaker 1: and three hours from to Lose. So this is a
24:13
Speaker 1: great spot to take the kids. They're not paying us
24:15
Speaker 1: to say that, we just know it to be the case. Also,
24:19
Speaker 1: I gotta tell you not everybody's a fan of Andorra.
24:23
Speaker 1: There's one guy, Alistir Bland, who wrote a Smithsonian Magazine
24:28
Speaker 1: article we love Smithsonian here that offend. Essentially, he's like
24:32
Speaker 1: a hit piece on Andra. It's called Andra the ugliest
24:35
Speaker 1: country in Europe. Question question right, and uh. He says
24:41
Speaker 1: that Andorra used to be a pretty cool place, but
24:44
Speaker 1: they have sold out, right, they have gone to commercial.
24:49
Speaker 1: When you look through what he's saying about it. Probably
24:51
Speaker 1: the line that stands out the most is uh. He says,
24:57
Speaker 1: when the Andlban saw the mountainous land that would be
25:00
Speaker 1: there's just up slope of Spain and south of France.
25:03
Speaker 1: I think I know what's what they would have said, crummy,
25:07
Speaker 1: it's gonna be tough to build shopping malls up there.
25:09
Speaker 1: So you know, that's like classic snarky European writing. But yeah,
25:15
Speaker 1: I mean, let's just be real. It's it's hard for
25:18
Speaker 1: places to be completely you know, beautiful places that do
25:21
Speaker 1: rely on tourism, to be completely untouched by commercialism. But
25:24
Speaker 1: it does sound like because of that kind of duty
25:27
Speaker 1: free zone that we mentioned that maybe commercialism has taken
25:31
Speaker 1: over in a in a bit of a maybe an
25:33
Speaker 1: icky way. I've not been to Endure, have have either
25:37
Speaker 1: of you fellas been to Endoor not quite yet? Field trip? Yeah, yeah,
25:44
Speaker 1: it'll it'll be a day trip. But Bland is seeming
25:47
Speaker 1: to argue that the whole place is just two skips
25:51
Speaker 1: to hop away from becoming a amusement park or something.
25:55
Speaker 1: But but get there while you can. It does remind
25:58
Speaker 1: me of a little town down near Atlanta here called Helen, Georgia,
26:03
Speaker 1: UM that is it was basically constructed to look like
26:07
Speaker 1: a German village with a lot of that architecture and
26:11
Speaker 1: those kind of multicolored little row houses, and you know,
26:14
Speaker 1: they've got little shops that sell pralins and fudge and
26:17
Speaker 1: they do oct October fests there. But as it turns out,
26:20
Speaker 1: there's no real tie to German culture and history there
26:24
Speaker 1: at all, but you would think there was. Um, it's
26:27
Speaker 1: entirely basically like this little fantasy land, kind of like
26:30
Speaker 1: an amusement park vibe. But I like it. I like
26:33
Speaker 1: to go people rag on Helen and they've got good
26:36
Speaker 1: tubing opportunities there. There's and funnel cake. It's like going
26:41
Speaker 1: to the county Fair, but you can like tube and
26:44
Speaker 1: and drink giant steins of beer, and they've got some
26:46
Speaker 1: really good German food there. But it is unusual that
26:50
Speaker 1: there really is no actual connection to culture. It's sort
26:53
Speaker 1: of manufactured culture, it seems like. And Door doesn't necessarily
26:56
Speaker 1: have that egregious of an example of this, but they
27:00
Speaker 1: could be that they're heading in that direction. Well, I
27:02
Speaker 1: you know, I'm a big fan of weirdly specific things,
27:06
Speaker 1: so to Helen, I would also add, to a lesser
27:09
Speaker 1: degree Avondale, Georgia has uh has this stretch where the
27:14
Speaker 1: builders said let's make things look like Shakespearean times and
27:19
Speaker 1: someone said why and then someone said, shut up, we're
27:21
Speaker 1: building it, and then Americana over in Brazil. I want
27:25
Speaker 1: to say the world is full of amazing places like this,
27:28
Speaker 1: and we'd love to hear from everybody who has had
27:31
Speaker 1: a chance to travel to Andorra. Let us know what
27:35
Speaker 1: your tips and tricks are. And as we said, it's
27:39
Speaker 1: not even the smallest country in Europe. It's number six.
27:43
Speaker 1: The smallest officially recognized country in the world out of
27:47
Speaker 1: the hundred and nineties seven or so that have some
27:50
Speaker 1: kind of recognition is of course, Vatican City. It's also
27:54
Speaker 1: the only place where you can find a t M
27:56
Speaker 1: S in Latin. And while you're helping us explore new
28:01
Speaker 1: and fascinating things, fellow Ridiculous historians, we would love to
28:04
Speaker 1: return the favor and help you explore some new and
28:09
Speaker 1: fascinating things, such as the other shows on the Ridicult
28:13
Speaker 1: in the Ridiculous Universe. Correct, uh, you like a little crime,
28:18
Speaker 1: but not so much of the blood and gore. While checkout,
28:22
Speaker 1: Zarin and Elizabeth are pals over at Ridiculous Crime. It's
28:26
Speaker 1: a delightful exploration of all things kind of absurd in
28:30
Speaker 1: the world of true crime, but with none of the
28:33
Speaker 1: kind of you know, misery, porn that's so much of
28:36
Speaker 1: other true crime podcasts tend to lean on what else
28:39
Speaker 1: we got. Well, we also have Ridiculous Romance with our
28:43
Speaker 1: pals Diana and Eli Uh. They are the nicest couple.
28:49
Speaker 1: They're married in real life, and every week they bring
28:52
Speaker 1: you stories of the strangest kinds of romance. It's not
28:57
Speaker 1: always amorous either, because love is a many splendored thing.
29:02
Speaker 1: And while you're doing all that, why not check out
29:05
Speaker 1: some guest appearances, most recently by Noel, also by me
29:09
Speaker 1: as well on Ridiculous News by Mark Kendall and Bill Whorley. Correct.
29:15
Speaker 1: They do a couple of different times of episodes every week,
29:18
Speaker 1: including news round up episodes, which is what I was
29:21
Speaker 1: lucky enough to be a guest on, wherein they just
29:23
Speaker 1: sort of explore some of the headlines of the week
29:26
Speaker 1: through a very thoughtful and dare I say, ridiculous lens,
29:29
Speaker 1: and I got to read some kind of mundane headlights
29:33
Speaker 1: and and silly voices. So that was a lot of fun.
29:35
Speaker 1: So definitely check out all of these peer podcasts and
29:38
Speaker 1: the Ridiculous Extended Universe, And as always, thanks to our
29:44
Speaker 1: super producer, Mr Max Williams. Thanks to Alex Williams who
29:47
Speaker 1: composed our track. Thanks to Jonathan Strickland, our own little
29:52
Speaker 1: and Dora of Ridiculous History and Dora from Bewitched. Samantha's
29:58
Speaker 1: Mother m Yeah, as soon as uh Samantha's uh kind
30:03
Speaker 1: of crazy mother in law played by the incredibly named,
30:06
Speaker 1: very uh charming Agnes Moorehead also huge thanks to Christopher
30:11
Speaker 1: Hasciotis here in spirit. Got to see corporeally the other
30:14
Speaker 1: day for a little git together thinking at our new offices. Um,
30:18
Speaker 1: hope to have him on the show very soon. We've
30:20
Speaker 1: been teasing that for a minute, but uh, our man's
30:22
Speaker 1: been a little bit slammed. But I'm gonna get back
30:25
Speaker 1: to that very soon. And in the meantime, of course,
30:28
Speaker 1: thanks also to use Jeff Coat, thanks to Gabe Bluesier,
30:31
Speaker 1: thanks to Dr Zach, thanks to Jeff Bartlett's, thanks to
30:35
Speaker 1: I'll say the one and only Mr Casey Pegram. Alright, folks,
30:39
Speaker 1: stay tuned for our upcoming episodes and uh hey, maybe
30:44
Speaker 1: catch us on the road to Andorra. We'll see you next. Topoix.
30:54
Speaker 1: For more podcasts for my heart Radio, visit the I
30:56
Speaker 1: heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to
30:59
Speaker 1: your favor right shows.