Some road trips are about the road. This one was mostly about lunch. In April 2025 four of us took a hire car from Plaça de Catalunya, drove up the AP-7 into France for a table at Les Grands Buffets in Narbonne that had been booked five months ahead, then crossed the Pyrenees on the N20 into Andorra for a night in Escaldes-Engordany and a morning at Caldea. The way home was through La Seu d'Urgell and down the C-16: two days, three countries and one very long lunch.
Lunch in Narbonne
Les Grands Buffets · 4.5/5
Forget everything the word "buffet" suggests. Les Grands Buffets is a belle-époque fantasy of French cooking in the Escoffier tradition, in a leisure complex on the edge of Narbonne. Lunch was served under crystal chandeliers in a striped marquee dining room, and the counters run through a glass-roofed gallery lined with carved wood and brass. There is a seafood bar with lobster and crab on ice, a tower of crayfish wreathed in dry-ice mist, a whole room of cheese (Gault&Millau calls it the world's largest cheese platter), foie gras, hams hanging over a carving station, a rotisserie manned by chefs in toques, and canard au sang carved to order. There is one fixed price, wine is sold at producer prices, and for the quality it is remarkable value.
French gastronomy as grand theatre: come hungry, leave slowly.
The catches are practical. You have to book months ahead (we booked in November for April), arrive in your slot, and accept that you are one of several hundred guests. Gault&Millau calls it "almost over-the-top", which is fair: it is theatre on an industrial scale, and the trick is to pace yourself.
Over the Pyrenees
From Narbonne we crossed the mountains on the N20, the old road up to the Andorran border. By Mérens-les-Vals, one of the last villages on the French side, there was still snow on the peaks in early April: a reminder that the ski season up here runs long.
A night in Escaldes
YOMO Mola Park · 3.5/5
A four-star in Escaldes, a few minutes' walk from Caldea, with a young, cheeky brand: the amenity bags in the room say "Take advantage of it" and "Don't be shy, use me!". Upper floors look straight up the valley at the mountains. Guests rate it highly (4.4 on Tripadvisor from about 950 reviews), especially for location, and for Andorra it was good value.
The rooms are the compromise. Standard doubles are listed at about 12 m² and premium doubles at 16 m², with shower-over-bath bathrooms, and value is the category guests mark down. For one night after a long drive it was fine; for a ski week I would want more space.
Caldea · 4/5
Caldea is the building that put Escaldes on the map: Jean-Michel Ruols' 1994 glass spire, about 80 metres high, glinting against the mountains by day and glowing like a lantern over the town at night. Underneath is the largest thermal spa in southern Europe, with water at 36°C. The Premium pass adds Inúu, an adults-only area with private jacuzzis and a bar, on top of the main pools, and it is the upgrade to choose if you want quiet. The outdoor pools, with the peaks above them, are the highlight.
It gets crowded at weekends, in ski season and in August, and the extras add up: towels, robes and lockers are all charged. Sessions are timed, so plan for about three hours. Next door, the little Parc de la Mola has views up the slopes.
Home through La Seu d'Urgell
The drive back drops out of Andorra into La Seu d'Urgell, just over the border on the Spanish side, which is where we stopped for lunch before the long run down the C-16 to Barcelona.
