November 15, 2022 • 31 mins
While it may be unfamiliar to many folks outside the region, the 6th-smallest country in Europe has a fascinating history all its own. In today's episode, Ben, Noel and Max dive into the strange origin story of Andorra, from its ancient past to the modern day.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Ye
(00:26):
welcome back to the show Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as
always so much for tuning in. Let's kick it off
with a special thanks to our super producer and research
associate for this episode, Mr Max Williams. No no no
no no no no no no no no Ah, yes, Ululation. Indeed,
uh they call me ben uh Noel. Today we're talking
(00:49):
about one of my favorite things, tiny nations. Micro even
this Yeah, this like a micro nation. It is definitely
one of the smallest nations in the world that is
still considered a nation. As a matter of fact, if
you were based in the US, you might not have
(01:11):
heard of a little old place called and Dora. And Uh.
I like the way Mac. I like the way you
were playing with the research or the title of this research. Uh.
And I don't know if you need to bleep this
part is what the hell is? Andorra Hey, what is that?
I had never heard of I've heard of some micro
nations and I'm like, I have never heard of this one.
And I started researching. I'm like, where is this one?
(01:34):
I know where these two other countries are, but I've
never heard of this one. Yeah, it's a it's a
tiny independent thing called a co principality in Europe. If
you look at a map, you'll see that it's it's
kind of plot there in the southern peaks of the Pyrenees.
(01:55):
It is bordered by France on the north and east
and Spain to the south and west. So it's kind
of like, imagine what's a good familiar border. Okay, imagine
the border of the United States and Mexico. Right, that's
a just straight shot across the continent. What if there
(02:15):
was another little place there and it was called um,
I'm just thinking it was called text Mexico, and it
was it was tiny, and the people who lived there
spoke maybe English or Spanish whatever their lingual franc is.
But it's still a different place. And the rivers flow
with Texas, Margharitas and Queso and chips Um. Indeed, uh,
(02:41):
you know, it's funny, Andra I. I only ever really
was aware of it because of the name of a
really great album by the artist Caribou, which is sort
of like a one of several projects by the Canadian
musician Dan Saith. And he has an album called Andorra,
and it's like super fulky electronic kind of dream pop.
(03:01):
And the cover does appear to be some sort of
vaguely European uh tulip be kind of scene, sort of
a landscape, So maybe there was really no specific thematic
tie to this part of the world, but that is
where I first heard then, and it is spelled exactly
the same, so I believe it has to be with
the double R. Yes, yeah, just so. Now. And Dora
(03:25):
is not a member of the European Union as we record,
but it has been a member of the United Nations
since it's a blink and you miss its spot on
the map. But it's quite unique. It is. Let's see,
it's about three times the size of Liechtenstein, which is
even smaller, yes, and also a country. It is only
(03:46):
about a hundred and eighty one square miles, or for
everybody outside the US and the Maybia four hundred and
sixty eight square kilometers. It's also two point five times
the size of d C. But it has a really
small population seventies thousand, five hundred people. Our question today,
(04:06):
how did and Dora become a thing? Sometimes you have
to look at places like Monaco or Liechtenstein or San
Marino and and Dora and say, huh, how how how
is this the thing? Especially given that European countries spent
so much of history beefing and trying to conquer each
(04:27):
other's territory. What made these scrappy, little little countries survive
all those wars of conquest? I guess we have to
start at the very beginning, right, Yeah, I would. I
would also just hazard a guest early on and just
kind of by being not that strategically important and uh
so small blanket, you might miss it. Yeah. Yeah, that's
(04:50):
why it's not surprising that a lot of people don't
learn too much about and Dora if there not growing
up in you know, in the region where in door
is Low caterd So we know that for thousands and
thousands of years people have occupied the valleys of modern
day and Dora, and you can find artifacts dating as
(05:12):
far back as the Neolithic period and even the Bronze Age.
That's right, and uh, it is conjectured by many, you
know experts in this region that the aboriginal Um people
who occupied this land originally were actually relatives of the
Basque people of northern Spain, which has kind of a
(05:33):
dialect of Spanish and its sound cuisine, which is wonderful.
By the way, if you ever in Atlanta, highly recommend
checking out the restaurants, Cooks and Soldiers. Yes, indeed, very
very good Basque cuisine. And the word and Dora is
believed to have been derived from the Basque language. I
believe I missed book earlier and saying that it was
a dialect of Spanish is in fact it's very own language.
(05:56):
So this was a kind of tribally settled region in
the country UM. And that includes other tribes such as
the Iberians from the south and also the Andesinos. So
at some point we do have indoor occupying a admittedly
small section of the Roman Empire. Uh. And when that
(06:19):
went belly up, as we know um tends to happen
with these massive empires, and Dora kind of did become
a bit of a of a gateway for tribes to
the north, some of these by barbarian hordes to pass
through from Gaul into Iberia. UM. And we had tribes
(06:40):
such as the Visigoths, uh, the Allen's and the Vandals
leaving behind evidence of these of these trips. So yeah,
of my conjecture earlier too, probably a little not exactly
on this was if a small window something that could
have been considered helpful to control or at least to
(07:01):
just kind of blast through, because it was kind of
a path through these different regions. Yeah, yeah, and so
it became, as you said, kind of a gateway. It's
also been independent for quite some time. Traditionally, you'll see
the independence of Andorra ascribed to the one and only Charlemagne,
not our pal from the Breakfast Club, Charlemagne the God,
(07:22):
but his namesake, the ancient ruler Charlemagne. Charlemagne took the
region back from Muslim forces in eight zero three CE
Common era, and his son Louis also known as Louis
the First or Louis the Pious, gave the inhabitants of
(07:43):
the area what was called a Charter of Liberties, recognizing
some of their autonomy. Charlemagne's grandson, Charles the Second, gave
and Dora to the counts of urgel U, R, G
E L. And this was something This sounds weird when
we talk about it in the modern day, but it
(08:03):
happened pretty often, not just in Europe. It happened pretty
often where some conquering force or governing force would say,
I give this to you. I bequeathed this to you.
And this meant that the people who quote unquote owned
the area would be able to um get proceeds from
taxes and levies and stuff like that. So and Dora
(08:26):
was passed from the counts of Urgel to the bishops
of Ergel and no spoiler alert, the people living there
had no say whatsoever in this. That's the This is
way before voting was a big big thing there. They
then had like a spin doctor situation that to Prince's song,
you know, like yeah, yeah, Princess udor whate in Spain,
(08:49):
what in France? And Dora owes their allegiance to both
of them because Spain and France started fighting over who
was the head han show of Andorra And you know,
you think maybe it's a situation where each is getting
Like I guess you don't really think of princes getting
a salary per se. It's more of a birthright. And
(09:10):
I guess I really thought about that, Ben, you ever
thought about how monarchs get paid. I always assume it's
like with tribute are sort of like you know, uh,
what do you call when gangsters go door to door
and get there. That's that's how I've always sort of
likened the monarchies to that. But it was an issue
because these two princes, I guess maybe each of them
(09:32):
did half a job, but they both got a full paycheck. Yeah. Yeah,
it's It's not great for the folks of Andra because
the Spanish Bishop of Urgell and the French head of
state got, like you said, an annual payment, a token tribute.
And this unique geopolitical tension allowed and or to remain
(09:53):
free for so long. They gained independence in twelve seventy eight,
and for the most part they've been independent ever since,
except for one one really weird period of time, and
that was in eighteen thirteen when the First French Empire,
under the leadership of Napoleon the First annexed Catalonia and
(10:17):
divided it into sections into fourths with Andorra along with
that Bishop of Urgul, which I keep wanting to say,
Rkle but that's fine, I will not I will I
will resist that temptation becoming part of one of the
fourth being the district of pug Ardia pug Chiza. That's
what I'm gonna say. And then when Napoleon the first
(10:40):
was in fact defeated. This was undone. Yeah yeah, like
a lot of the things Napoleon did as soon as
he was out of power. Uh, the European status quo
and powers that be with nope, psych fake out back
to normal and since eighteen o six the rights of
this co principality have belonged to the French head of
(11:05):
state and they're technically now held by the French President. Look,
with all this stuff, all this bureaucratic gobbledegook, it's understandable
that it took the enduring government a while to move
toward a more modern political system. They actually had a
feudal system of government until nineteen ninety three. That's when
(11:25):
they adopted a constitution that knocked down the power of
these co princes and established stuff that we think of
as basic in democracy today. The day one things an executive,
legislative and judicial branch. And then that same year they
joined the U N and then i think the year
after they joined the Council of Europe, but not the
European Union just yet. Okay, so you may be asking yourself,
(11:55):
why do we care? I mean, it's tiny, that's definitely
a pet interest of this program. But there are also
some other features of andor in terms of the geography
and the economics of the region that are pretty pretty
neat um so and Dora basically is made up of
these little little packets of mountain valleys. Remember we talked
(12:16):
about how the valleys have been occupied, you know, for
a long time. There streams. The streams of these valleys
actually form the Valira River, not the Valerian River for
the Game of Thrones House of the Dragon's focus if
that's not real, um spoiler alert. The Valera River pretty
close sounding though. Two of those uh streams that that
(12:38):
form that larger body of water, the mad Drew and
the Para Fizza, they actually flow into the Madriu Parafita
Clara valley that occupies about a tenth of the entire
land mass of Andorra. It's gorgeous a at these glaciers
and these valleys, the very steep valleys and all of
these really lush kind of open pastures and this area.
(13:00):
If anyone's familiar with an ESCO World Heritage Sites, those
are cloud you know, parts of the world that are
you know, points of interest or remarkable in some way
or have some sort of historical meaning. Um. This was
added to the UNESCO World Heritage Site List in two
thousand four. But the interesting part is this that with
all of that glory, all of that you know, visual splendor,
(13:22):
we do have some pretty, you know, kind of harsh landscapes,
I guess glacier glacial landscapes not necessarily the most cultivatable,
you know, for for agriculture. So only a very small
percentage of the lands in Andorra can be used for livestock.
(13:42):
So the actual economy really is centered more on sheep
and harvesting pretty minor amounts of wheat, grapes, olives, tobacco,
and potatoes. Yeah, and you know, it's ridiculous historians, you'll
notice a couple of those things are things that came
from you know, the North and South American continents, potatoes
(14:05):
and tobacco in particular. And this is this is something
that a lot of mountainous regions struggle with the idea
of arable land because they were victims of geography there.
To be quite honest about it, their industry was limited
to processing this stuff and then to making handicrafts. But
(14:27):
they also didn't have very much in the way of
taxes and they didn't have a lot of custom duties.
And that continues today, which means and Dora has become
this big clearing house for retail trade, and that means
it's huge for tourism. It's huge for shoppers. People living
along the French or Spanish border might say, oh, let's
(14:51):
let's pop over to Andorra. I don't know why they
have a British accent. Okay, backstory, I'm making a backstory.
They're they're British retirees and they live thick, live in
Spain and they go to Andorra to get the cheap
cigarettes or the cheap booze. Can we also say, really quick,
just addressing British listeners, we know we're doing a British
accent that doesn't exist anymore. That's why we're doing it.
(15:13):
It's better to do that one than to try and approximate,
like we're not, you know, being actors. Here. We're doing
a silly bit of a voice that doesn't exist because
it's funny. I do. I can do yeah, true story, folks.
I can do passable, much more realistic British accents, but
we like the fun ones the same way that your
(15:33):
favorite uh British comics might like the fun American accents. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
like Harlan Oh gosh, yeah, we need we need no
offense and if anything, we're doing it to prevent offense.
But I have noticed a few emails or it's like Jesus, guys,
(15:56):
no one talks that we we we get it. So yes,
think but this and all is mended, so on and
so on. All right, here's the thing though. Tourism is
big now. Of course being mountainous, it's also a huge
draw for people enjoy winter sports skiing, snowboarding, etcetera. The
construction industry has been doing well because of all the tourism.
(16:20):
And uh, there's one line that might sound like a throwaway,
but you need to think about it. The banking sector
is also economically significant. This is not unusual with a
lot of the tiny, tiny European nations. And and and
Or is the sixth smallest European nation. And we we
(16:40):
talked about a member of the European Union. What do
they have like Andoran currency. No, they basically used the euro.
They don't have the Andoran pound. They basically if you
go to a shop, you're gonna you're gonna use a euro,
you know, you could you could try to make an
indoor and pounds, but it probably counts is counterfeiting. It
(17:02):
counts is counterfeiting whatever. So in I think July two
thousand eleven, they made a deal with the European Union
that made the euro its official currency, but they can't
issue their own bank notes. There's also no railway system.
There is one small airport. You know, there's a university
(17:24):
that was established in It's not a bad place to live.
And you know what's neat about this because it's landlocked,
it's insulated. It's like sandwiched in between Spain and France.
I would argue, even if it's not on paper part
of the European Union, it functionally is, right, Like maybe
that's just a way to get out of taxation requirements. Yeah,
(17:48):
I mean that's what allows them to have their essential
like duty free lounge. You know, like there's sort of
this like liminal space that exists for you know, vacationing
and shopping mainly. It's yeah lutely that would be they'd
be kind of sunk without it. Yeah, it's almost like
the duty free store for Spain and France. And I
(18:08):
think we gotta go back. Uh, we gotta go back,
you guys to this weird governmental structure. And Max know
this stood out for you too. So they're represented internationally
by these co princes. That's what makes them a co principality. Uh,
they're headed their government is headed by the delegates from
(18:31):
these areas. So right now two thousand and twenty two,
the nation of Andorra is led by two foreign individuals,
h bishop from a city in Spain and the President
of France. That means the leaders of Andorra but are
currently Joan Anriq Vives uh Is Cecilia and Emmanuel mccron uh.
(18:53):
And neither of them live there. I'm just gonna put
that out there. No, they still don't, but there are
some remnants that that might seem a little more like
Lord of the Rings and kind of they have something
called the General Council of the Valleys because twenty eight
member body responsible for kind of you know, administering internal
(19:15):
functions of you know, government, both as a kind of
an informal legislature and a cabinet that has headed up
by a prime minister. Yeah. Yeah, so they have so
like despite the the strange past of their government. They
do have elections, they do vote for these representatives, and
(19:37):
you know that you can you can learn easily about
the cycle of how their elections work. Right now, most
of the real power has been transferred from those co
princes to that General Council, and they do have universal suffrage, etcetera, etcetera,
so they are modernized. But Max pointed out something really interesting.
(20:00):
I liked the Council because it's such a small country.
The Council is about point three six of the country's population.
For comparison, the United States UH Congress, that's four in
thirty five House of rep members and a hundred senators.
That's about point zero zero zero one six per cent
(20:22):
of the US population. So lest you cast dispersions on andorra,
dear American friends, remember that their government is, you know,
arguably way more representative than the US government. They probably
all know each other too, That's how I feel. I
feel like they know each other. Now. They can raise
money through taxation, they've got independent judges, people can form
(20:44):
trade unions and political parties. Still, though those co princes,
those two foreign individuals are the constitutional heads of state,
like uh, several other European countries, this is primarily a
ceremonial role sort of. How like in the United Kingdom,
the late queen now king that the crown basically, uh
(21:06):
can just change any law they want, but there's this
implied understanding that they'll never actually do it. You know.
It's it's that kind of thing. It's a ceremonial rule. Also,
if we want to backtrack to the representation, I got
a weird United States example. Do you guys know about
the massive House of representatives they have in New Hampshire.
(21:27):
I've heard a little yeah. I mean, you know, like
with the past election and stuff. You know, just watching
some news conference and someone's talking about this, there is
four hundred members in the New Hampshire House Representatives. That
little tiny state has four hundred members. It's is I
got the Wikipedia page pulled up right now. It is
one legislator for every three thousand, three hundred residents. Well
(21:50):
that's great. Yeah, it's weird. It's like New Hampshire. I
think it's like twice the size of Pennsylvania's. I mean,
isn't that the closest thing to represent true representative democracy
that you can think of? Mm hmm it's pretty close.
But granted, I mean granted, it's okay, I'll end it there. No, no,
(22:12):
it just had to no plun left behind X And
if you're picturing you know this, if you're picturing like
the first Pink Panther movie, kind of like you know,
opulent Europeans assembled in Swiss chalets with their finest you know,
(22:35):
wool sweaters, woolen sweaters and booties. Uh, you're probably not
too far off. Um. It is located high in the
Eastern Pyrenees Mountains, right there between France and Spain. It
does have this kind of lovely mountain scenery, but it
is very well known for its winter sporting opportunities. You've
got skiers and snowboarders that come there. There's a tiny
(22:57):
little town called in Camp kind of fun, and that
is a base for the Pause de la Casa and
the Grau Roy ski areas. Um. You also have another
giant ski attraction called Grand Valira, which learns a reference
to that river between Andorra la Vela and Escaldes. So
(23:20):
if you're not into skiing and showing off your finest cashmere,
why not check out some sight seeing in the kind
of you know, this sort of set in time, kind
of frozen in time places like where you know these villages.
One such example would be El Serat, which is high
in the mountains, and La Cortinada, where you can see
(23:42):
a beautiful church called the Marte de la Cortinada. Um
and these are very picturesque, charming little bergs right northwest
of the capital city. Yeah, yeah, yeah, this is This
is cool too because for p people who live in
the region, it's an awesome day trip. You're only a
(24:05):
few hours from Barcelona, like three hours drive from Barcelona
and three hours from to Lose. So this is a
great spot to take the kids. They're not paying us
to say that, we just know it to be the case. Also,
I gotta tell you not everybody's a fan of Andorra.
There's one guy, Alistir Bland, who wrote a Smithsonian Magazine
(24:28):
article we love Smithsonian here that offend. Essentially, he's like
a hit piece on Andra. It's called Andra the ugliest
country in Europe. Question question right, and uh. He says
that Andorra used to be a pretty cool place, but
they have sold out, right, they have gone to commercial.
(24:49):
When you look through what he's saying about it. Probably
the line that stands out the most is uh. He says,
when the Andlban saw the mountainous land that would be
there's just up slope of Spain and south of France.
I think I know what's what they would have said, crummy,
it's gonna be tough to build shopping malls up there.
(25:09):
So you know, that's like classic snarky European writing. But yeah,
I mean, let's just be real. It's it's hard for
places to be completely you know, beautiful places that do
rely on tourism, to be completely untouched by commercialism. But
it does sound like because of that kind of duty
free zone that we mentioned that maybe commercialism has taken
(25:31):
over in a in a bit of a maybe an
icky way. I've not been to Endure, have have either
of you fellas been to Endoor not quite yet? Field trip? Yeah, yeah,
it'll it'll be a day trip. But Bland is seeming
to argue that the whole place is just two skips
(25:51):
to hop away from becoming a amusement park or something.
But but get there while you can. It does remind
me of a little town down near Atlanta here called Helen, Georgia,
UM that is it was basically constructed to look like
a German village with a lot of that architecture and
those kind of multicolored little row houses, and you know,
(26:14):
they've got little shops that sell pralins and fudge and
they do oct October fests there. But as it turns out,
there's no real tie to German culture and history there
at all, but you would think there was. Um, it's
entirely basically like this little fantasy land, kind of like
an amusement park vibe. But I like it. I like
to go people rag on Helen and they've got good
(26:36):
tubing opportunities there. There's and funnel cake. It's like going
to the county Fair, but you can like tube and
and drink giant steins of beer, and they've got some
really good German food there. But it is unusual that
there really is no actual connection to culture. It's sort
of manufactured culture, it seems like. And Door doesn't necessarily
(26:56):
have that egregious of an example of this, but they
could be that they're heading in that direction. Well, I
you know, I'm a big fan of weirdly specific things,
so to Helen, I would also add, to a lesser
degree Avondale, Georgia has uh has this stretch where the
builders said let's make things look like Shakespearean times and
(27:19):
someone said why and then someone said, shut up, we're
building it, and then Americana over in Brazil. I want
to say the world is full of amazing places like this,
and we'd love to hear from everybody who has had
a chance to travel to Andorra. Let us know what
your tips and tricks are. And as we said, it's
(27:39):
not even the smallest country in Europe. It's number six.
The smallest officially recognized country in the world out of
the hundred and nineties seven or so that have some
kind of recognition is of course, Vatican City. It's also
the only place where you can find a t M
S in Latin. And while you're helping us explore new
(28:01):
and fascinating things, fellow Ridiculous historians, we would love to
return the favor and help you explore some new and
fascinating things, such as the other shows on the Ridicult
in the Ridiculous Universe. Correct, uh, you like a little crime,
but not so much of the blood and gore. While checkout,
(28:22):
Zarin and Elizabeth are pals over at Ridiculous Crime. It's
a delightful exploration of all things kind of absurd in
the world of true crime, but with none of the
kind of you know, misery, porn that's so much of
other true crime podcasts tend to lean on what else
we got. Well, we also have Ridiculous Romance with our
(28:43):
pals Diana and Eli Uh. They are the nicest couple.
They're married in real life, and every week they bring
you stories of the strangest kinds of romance. It's not
always amorous either, because love is a many splendored thing.
And while you're doing all that, why not check out
(29:05):
some guest appearances, most recently by Noel, also by me
as well on Ridiculous News by Mark Kendall and Bill Whorley. Correct.
They do a couple of different times of episodes every week,
including news round up episodes, which is what I was
lucky enough to be a guest on, wherein they just
sort of explore some of the headlines of the week
(29:26):
through a very thoughtful and dare I say, ridiculous lens,
and I got to read some kind of mundane headlights
and and silly voices. So that was a lot of fun.
So definitely check out all of these peer podcasts and
the Ridiculous Extended Universe, And as always, thanks to our
super producer, Mr Max Williams. Thanks to Alex Williams who
(29:47):
composed our track. Thanks to Jonathan Strickland, our own little
and Dora of Ridiculous History and Dora from Bewitched. Samantha's
Mother m Yeah, as soon as uh Samantha's uh kind
of crazy mother in law played by the incredibly named,
very uh charming Agnes Moorehead also huge thanks to Christopher
(30:11):
Hasciotis here in spirit. Got to see corporeally the other
day for a little git together thinking at our new offices. Um,
hope to have him on the show very soon. We've
been teasing that for a minute, but uh, our man's
been a little bit slammed. But I'm gonna get back
to that very soon. And in the meantime, of course,
thanks also to use Jeff Coat, thanks to Gabe Bluesier,
(30:31):
thanks to Dr Zach, thanks to Jeff Bartlett's, thanks to
I'll say the one and only Mr Casey Pegram. Alright, folks,
stay tuned for our upcoming episodes and uh hey, maybe
catch us on the road to Andorra. We'll see you next. Topoix.
(30:54):
For more podcasts for my heart Radio, visit the I
heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to
your favor right shows.
Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Ye
(00:26):
welcome back to the show Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as
always so much for tuning in. Let's kick it off
with a special thanks to our super producer and research
associate for this episode, Mr Max Williams. No no no
no no no no no no no no Ah, yes, Ululation. Indeed,
uh they call me ben uh Noel. Today we're talking
(00:49):
about one of my favorite things, tiny nations. Micro even
this Yeah, this like a micro nation. It is definitely
one of the smallest nations in the world that is
still considered a nation. As a matter of fact, if
you were based in the US, you might not have
(01:11):
heard of a little old place called and Dora. And Uh.
I like the way Mac. I like the way you
were playing with the research or the title of this research. Uh.
And I don't know if you need to bleep this
part is what the hell is? Andorra Hey, what is that?
I had never heard of I've heard of some micro
nations and I'm like, I have never heard of this one.
And I started researching. I'm like, where is this one?
(01:34):
I know where these two other countries are, but I've
never heard of this one. Yeah, it's a it's a
tiny independent thing called a co principality in Europe. If
you look at a map, you'll see that it's it's
kind of plot there in the southern peaks of the Pyrenees.
(01:55):
It is bordered by France on the north and east
and Spain to the south and west. So it's kind
of like, imagine what's a good familiar border. Okay, imagine
the border of the United States and Mexico. Right, that's
a just straight shot across the continent. What if there
(02:15):
was another little place there and it was called um,
I'm just thinking it was called text Mexico, and it
was it was tiny, and the people who lived there
spoke maybe English or Spanish whatever their lingual franc is.
But it's still a different place. And the rivers flow
with Texas, Margharitas and Queso and chips Um. Indeed, uh,
(02:41):
you know, it's funny, Andra I. I only ever really
was aware of it because of the name of a
really great album by the artist Caribou, which is sort
of like a one of several projects by the Canadian
musician Dan Saith. And he has an album called Andorra,
and it's like super fulky electronic kind of dream pop.
(03:01):
And the cover does appear to be some sort of
vaguely European uh tulip be kind of scene, sort of
a landscape, So maybe there was really no specific thematic
tie to this part of the world, but that is
where I first heard then, and it is spelled exactly
the same, so I believe it has to be with
the double R. Yes, yeah, just so. Now. And Dora
(03:25):
is not a member of the European Union as we record,
but it has been a member of the United Nations
since it's a blink and you miss its spot on
the map. But it's quite unique. It is. Let's see,
it's about three times the size of Liechtenstein, which is
even smaller, yes, and also a country. It is only
(03:46):
about a hundred and eighty one square miles, or for
everybody outside the US and the Maybia four hundred and
sixty eight square kilometers. It's also two point five times
the size of d C. But it has a really
small population seventies thousand, five hundred people. Our question today,
(04:06):
how did and Dora become a thing? Sometimes you have
to look at places like Monaco or Liechtenstein or San
Marino and and Dora and say, huh, how how how
is this the thing? Especially given that European countries spent
so much of history beefing and trying to conquer each
(04:27):
other's territory. What made these scrappy, little little countries survive
all those wars of conquest? I guess we have to
start at the very beginning, right, Yeah, I would. I
would also just hazard a guest early on and just
kind of by being not that strategically important and uh
so small blanket, you might miss it. Yeah. Yeah, that's
(04:50):
why it's not surprising that a lot of people don't
learn too much about and Dora if there not growing
up in you know, in the region where in door
is Low caterd So we know that for thousands and
thousands of years people have occupied the valleys of modern
day and Dora, and you can find artifacts dating as
(05:12):
far back as the Neolithic period and even the Bronze Age.
That's right, and uh, it is conjectured by many, you
know experts in this region that the aboriginal Um people
who occupied this land originally were actually relatives of the
Basque people of northern Spain, which has kind of a
(05:33):
dialect of Spanish and its sound cuisine, which is wonderful.
By the way, if you ever in Atlanta, highly recommend
checking out the restaurants, Cooks and Soldiers. Yes, indeed, very
very good Basque cuisine. And the word and Dora is
believed to have been derived from the Basque language. I
believe I missed book earlier and saying that it was
a dialect of Spanish is in fact it's very own language.
(05:56):
So this was a kind of tribally settled region in
the country UM. And that includes other tribes such as
the Iberians from the south and also the Andesinos. So
at some point we do have indoor occupying a admittedly
small section of the Roman Empire. Uh. And when that
(06:19):
went belly up, as we know um tends to happen
with these massive empires, and Dora kind of did become
a bit of a of a gateway for tribes to
the north, some of these by barbarian hordes to pass
through from Gaul into Iberia. UM. And we had tribes
(06:40):
such as the Visigoths, uh, the Allen's and the Vandals
leaving behind evidence of these of these trips. So yeah,
of my conjecture earlier too, probably a little not exactly
on this was if a small window something that could
have been considered helpful to control or at least to
(07:01):
just kind of blast through, because it was kind of
a path through these different regions. Yeah, yeah, and so
it became, as you said, kind of a gateway. It's
also been independent for quite some time. Traditionally, you'll see
the independence of Andorra ascribed to the one and only Charlemagne,
not our pal from the Breakfast Club, Charlemagne the God,
(07:22):
but his namesake, the ancient ruler Charlemagne. Charlemagne took the
region back from Muslim forces in eight zero three CE
Common era, and his son Louis also known as Louis
the First or Louis the Pious, gave the inhabitants of
(07:43):
the area what was called a Charter of Liberties, recognizing
some of their autonomy. Charlemagne's grandson, Charles the Second, gave
and Dora to the counts of urgel U, R, G
E L. And this was something This sounds weird when
we talk about it in the modern day, but it
(08:03):
happened pretty often, not just in Europe. It happened pretty
often where some conquering force or governing force would say,
I give this to you. I bequeathed this to you.
And this meant that the people who quote unquote owned
the area would be able to um get proceeds from
taxes and levies and stuff like that. So and Dora
(08:26):
was passed from the counts of Urgel to the bishops
of Ergel and no spoiler alert, the people living there
had no say whatsoever in this. That's the This is
way before voting was a big big thing there. They
then had like a spin doctor situation that to Prince's song,
you know, like yeah, yeah, Princess udor whate in Spain,
(08:49):
what in France? And Dora owes their allegiance to both
of them because Spain and France started fighting over who
was the head han show of Andorra And you know,
you think maybe it's a situation where each is getting
Like I guess you don't really think of princes getting
a salary per se. It's more of a birthright. And
(09:10):
I guess I really thought about that, Ben, you ever
thought about how monarchs get paid. I always assume it's
like with tribute are sort of like you know, uh,
what do you call when gangsters go door to door
and get there. That's that's how I've always sort of
likened the monarchies to that. But it was an issue
because these two princes, I guess maybe each of them
(09:32):
did half a job, but they both got a full paycheck. Yeah. Yeah,
it's It's not great for the folks of Andra because
the Spanish Bishop of Urgell and the French head of
state got, like you said, an annual payment, a token tribute.
And this unique geopolitical tension allowed and or to remain
(09:53):
free for so long. They gained independence in twelve seventy eight,
and for the most part they've been independent ever since,
except for one one really weird period of time, and
that was in eighteen thirteen when the First French Empire,
under the leadership of Napoleon the First annexed Catalonia and
(10:17):
divided it into sections into fourths with Andorra along with
that Bishop of Urgul, which I keep wanting to say,
Rkle but that's fine, I will not I will I
will resist that temptation becoming part of one of the
fourth being the district of pug Ardia pug Chiza. That's
what I'm gonna say. And then when Napoleon the first
(10:40):
was in fact defeated. This was undone. Yeah yeah, like
a lot of the things Napoleon did as soon as
he was out of power. Uh, the European status quo
and powers that be with nope, psych fake out back
to normal and since eighteen o six the rights of
this co principality have belonged to the French head of
(11:05):
state and they're technically now held by the French President. Look,
with all this stuff, all this bureaucratic gobbledegook, it's understandable
that it took the enduring government a while to move
toward a more modern political system. They actually had a
feudal system of government until nineteen ninety three. That's when
(11:25):
they adopted a constitution that knocked down the power of
these co princes and established stuff that we think of
as basic in democracy today. The day one things an executive,
legislative and judicial branch. And then that same year they
joined the U N and then i think the year
after they joined the Council of Europe, but not the
European Union just yet. Okay, so you may be asking yourself,
(11:55):
why do we care? I mean, it's tiny, that's definitely
a pet interest of this program. But there are also
some other features of andor in terms of the geography
and the economics of the region that are pretty pretty
neat um so and Dora basically is made up of
these little little packets of mountain valleys. Remember we talked
(12:16):
about how the valleys have been occupied, you know, for
a long time. There streams. The streams of these valleys
actually form the Valira River, not the Valerian River for
the Game of Thrones House of the Dragon's focus if
that's not real, um spoiler alert. The Valera River pretty
close sounding though. Two of those uh streams that that
(12:38):
form that larger body of water, the mad Drew and
the Para Fizza, they actually flow into the Madriu Parafita
Clara valley that occupies about a tenth of the entire
land mass of Andorra. It's gorgeous a at these glaciers
and these valleys, the very steep valleys and all of
these really lush kind of open pastures and this area.
(13:00):
If anyone's familiar with an ESCO World Heritage Sites, those
are cloud you know, parts of the world that are
you know, points of interest or remarkable in some way
or have some sort of historical meaning. Um. This was
added to the UNESCO World Heritage Site List in two
thousand four. But the interesting part is this that with
all of that glory, all of that you know, visual splendor,
(13:22):
we do have some pretty, you know, kind of harsh landscapes,
I guess glacier glacial landscapes not necessarily the most cultivatable,
you know, for for agriculture. So only a very small
percentage of the lands in Andorra can be used for livestock.
(13:42):
So the actual economy really is centered more on sheep
and harvesting pretty minor amounts of wheat, grapes, olives, tobacco,
and potatoes. Yeah, and you know, it's ridiculous historians, you'll
notice a couple of those things are things that came
from you know, the North and South American continents, potatoes
(14:05):
and tobacco in particular. And this is this is something
that a lot of mountainous regions struggle with the idea
of arable land because they were victims of geography there.
To be quite honest about it, their industry was limited
to processing this stuff and then to making handicrafts. But
(14:27):
they also didn't have very much in the way of
taxes and they didn't have a lot of custom duties.
And that continues today, which means and Dora has become
this big clearing house for retail trade, and that means
it's huge for tourism. It's huge for shoppers. People living
along the French or Spanish border might say, oh, let's
(14:51):
let's pop over to Andorra. I don't know why they
have a British accent. Okay, backstory, I'm making a backstory.
They're they're British retirees and they live thick, live in
Spain and they go to Andorra to get the cheap
cigarettes or the cheap booze. Can we also say, really quick,
just addressing British listeners, we know we're doing a British
accent that doesn't exist anymore. That's why we're doing it.
(15:13):
It's better to do that one than to try and approximate,
like we're not, you know, being actors. Here. We're doing
a silly bit of a voice that doesn't exist because
it's funny. I do. I can do yeah, true story, folks.
I can do passable, much more realistic British accents, but
we like the fun ones the same way that your
(15:33):
favorite uh British comics might like the fun American accents. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
like Harlan Oh gosh, yeah, we need we need no
offense and if anything, we're doing it to prevent offense.
But I have noticed a few emails or it's like Jesus, guys,
(15:56):
no one talks that we we we get it. So yes,
think but this and all is mended, so on and
so on. All right, here's the thing though. Tourism is
big now. Of course being mountainous, it's also a huge
draw for people enjoy winter sports skiing, snowboarding, etcetera. The
construction industry has been doing well because of all the tourism.
(16:20):
And uh, there's one line that might sound like a throwaway,
but you need to think about it. The banking sector
is also economically significant. This is not unusual with a
lot of the tiny, tiny European nations. And and and
Or is the sixth smallest European nation. And we we
(16:40):
talked about a member of the European Union. What do
they have like Andoran currency. No, they basically used the euro.
They don't have the Andoran pound. They basically if you
go to a shop, you're gonna you're gonna use a euro,
you know, you could you could try to make an
indoor and pounds, but it probably counts is counterfeiting. It
(17:02):
counts is counterfeiting whatever. So in I think July two
thousand eleven, they made a deal with the European Union
that made the euro its official currency, but they can't
issue their own bank notes. There's also no railway system.
There is one small airport. You know, there's a university
(17:24):
that was established in It's not a bad place to live.
And you know what's neat about this because it's landlocked,
it's insulated. It's like sandwiched in between Spain and France.
I would argue, even if it's not on paper part
of the European Union, it functionally is, right, Like maybe
that's just a way to get out of taxation requirements. Yeah,
(17:48):
I mean that's what allows them to have their essential
like duty free lounge. You know, like there's sort of
this like liminal space that exists for you know, vacationing
and shopping mainly. It's yeah lutely that would be they'd
be kind of sunk without it. Yeah, it's almost like
the duty free store for Spain and France. And I
(18:08):
think we gotta go back. Uh, we gotta go back,
you guys to this weird governmental structure. And Max know
this stood out for you too. So they're represented internationally
by these co princes. That's what makes them a co principality. Uh,
they're headed their government is headed by the delegates from
(18:31):
these areas. So right now two thousand and twenty two,
the nation of Andorra is led by two foreign individuals,
h bishop from a city in Spain and the President
of France. That means the leaders of Andorra but are
currently Joan Anriq Vives uh Is Cecilia and Emmanuel mccron uh.
(18:53):
And neither of them live there. I'm just gonna put
that out there. No, they still don't, but there are
some remnants that that might seem a little more like
Lord of the Rings and kind of they have something
called the General Council of the Valleys because twenty eight
member body responsible for kind of you know, administering internal
(19:15):
functions of you know, government, both as a kind of
an informal legislature and a cabinet that has headed up
by a prime minister. Yeah. Yeah, so they have so
like despite the the strange past of their government. They
do have elections, they do vote for these representatives, and
(19:37):
you know that you can you can learn easily about
the cycle of how their elections work. Right now, most
of the real power has been transferred from those co
princes to that General Council, and they do have universal suffrage, etcetera, etcetera,
so they are modernized. But Max pointed out something really interesting.
(20:00):
I liked the Council because it's such a small country.
The Council is about point three six of the country's population.
For comparison, the United States UH Congress, that's four in
thirty five House of rep members and a hundred senators.
That's about point zero zero zero one six per cent
(20:22):
of the US population. So lest you cast dispersions on andorra,
dear American friends, remember that their government is, you know,
arguably way more representative than the US government. They probably
all know each other too, That's how I feel. I
feel like they know each other. Now. They can raise
money through taxation, they've got independent judges, people can form
(20:44):
trade unions and political parties. Still, though those co princes,
those two foreign individuals are the constitutional heads of state,
like uh, several other European countries, this is primarily a
ceremonial role sort of. How like in the United Kingdom,
the late queen now king that the crown basically, uh
(21:06):
can just change any law they want, but there's this
implied understanding that they'll never actually do it. You know.
It's it's that kind of thing. It's a ceremonial rule. Also,
if we want to backtrack to the representation, I got
a weird United States example. Do you guys know about
the massive House of representatives they have in New Hampshire.
(21:27):
I've heard a little yeah. I mean, you know, like
with the past election and stuff. You know, just watching
some news conference and someone's talking about this, there is
four hundred members in the New Hampshire House Representatives. That
little tiny state has four hundred members. It's is I
got the Wikipedia page pulled up right now. It is
one legislator for every three thousand, three hundred residents. Well
(21:50):
that's great. Yeah, it's weird. It's like New Hampshire. I
think it's like twice the size of Pennsylvania's. I mean,
isn't that the closest thing to represent true representative democracy
that you can think of? Mm hmm it's pretty close.
But granted, I mean granted, it's okay, I'll end it there. No, no,
(22:12):
it just had to no plun left behind X And
if you're picturing you know this, if you're picturing like
the first Pink Panther movie, kind of like you know,
opulent Europeans assembled in Swiss chalets with their finest you know,
(22:35):
wool sweaters, woolen sweaters and booties. Uh, you're probably not
too far off. Um. It is located high in the
Eastern Pyrenees Mountains, right there between France and Spain. It
does have this kind of lovely mountain scenery, but it
is very well known for its winter sporting opportunities. You've
got skiers and snowboarders that come there. There's a tiny
(22:57):
little town called in Camp kind of fun, and that
is a base for the Pause de la Casa and
the Grau Roy ski areas. Um. You also have another
giant ski attraction called Grand Valira, which learns a reference
to that river between Andorra la Vela and Escaldes. So
(23:20):
if you're not into skiing and showing off your finest cashmere,
why not check out some sight seeing in the kind
of you know, this sort of set in time, kind
of frozen in time places like where you know these villages.
One such example would be El Serat, which is high
in the mountains, and La Cortinada, where you can see
(23:42):
a beautiful church called the Marte de la Cortinada. Um
and these are very picturesque, charming little bergs right northwest
of the capital city. Yeah, yeah, yeah, this is This
is cool too because for p people who live in
the region, it's an awesome day trip. You're only a
(24:05):
few hours from Barcelona, like three hours drive from Barcelona
and three hours from to Lose. So this is a
great spot to take the kids. They're not paying us
to say that, we just know it to be the case. Also,
I gotta tell you not everybody's a fan of Andorra.
There's one guy, Alistir Bland, who wrote a Smithsonian Magazine
(24:28):
article we love Smithsonian here that offend. Essentially, he's like
a hit piece on Andra. It's called Andra the ugliest
country in Europe. Question question right, and uh. He says
that Andorra used to be a pretty cool place, but
they have sold out, right, they have gone to commercial.
(24:49):
When you look through what he's saying about it. Probably
the line that stands out the most is uh. He says,
when the Andlban saw the mountainous land that would be
there's just up slope of Spain and south of France.
I think I know what's what they would have said, crummy,
it's gonna be tough to build shopping malls up there.
(25:09):
So you know, that's like classic snarky European writing. But yeah,
I mean, let's just be real. It's it's hard for
places to be completely you know, beautiful places that do
rely on tourism, to be completely untouched by commercialism. But
it does sound like because of that kind of duty
free zone that we mentioned that maybe commercialism has taken
(25:31):
over in a in a bit of a maybe an
icky way. I've not been to Endure, have have either
of you fellas been to Endoor not quite yet? Field trip? Yeah, yeah,
it'll it'll be a day trip. But Bland is seeming
to argue that the whole place is just two skips
(25:51):
to hop away from becoming a amusement park or something.
But but get there while you can. It does remind
me of a little town down near Atlanta here called Helen, Georgia,
UM that is it was basically constructed to look like
a German village with a lot of that architecture and
those kind of multicolored little row houses, and you know,
(26:14):
they've got little shops that sell pralins and fudge and
they do oct October fests there. But as it turns out,
there's no real tie to German culture and history there
at all, but you would think there was. Um, it's
entirely basically like this little fantasy land, kind of like
an amusement park vibe. But I like it. I like
to go people rag on Helen and they've got good
(26:36):
tubing opportunities there. There's and funnel cake. It's like going
to the county Fair, but you can like tube and
and drink giant steins of beer, and they've got some
really good German food there. But it is unusual that
there really is no actual connection to culture. It's sort
of manufactured culture, it seems like. And Door doesn't necessarily
(26:56):
have that egregious of an example of this, but they
could be that they're heading in that direction. Well, I
you know, I'm a big fan of weirdly specific things,
so to Helen, I would also add, to a lesser
degree Avondale, Georgia has uh has this stretch where the
builders said let's make things look like Shakespearean times and
(27:19):
someone said why and then someone said, shut up, we're
building it, and then Americana over in Brazil. I want
to say the world is full of amazing places like this,
and we'd love to hear from everybody who has had
a chance to travel to Andorra. Let us know what
your tips and tricks are. And as we said, it's
(27:39):
not even the smallest country in Europe. It's number six.
The smallest officially recognized country in the world out of
the hundred and nineties seven or so that have some
kind of recognition is of course, Vatican City. It's also
the only place where you can find a t M
S in Latin. And while you're helping us explore new
(28:01):
and fascinating things, fellow Ridiculous historians, we would love to
return the favor and help you explore some new and
fascinating things, such as the other shows on the Ridicult
in the Ridiculous Universe. Correct, uh, you like a little crime,
but not so much of the blood and gore. While checkout,
(28:22):
Zarin and Elizabeth are pals over at Ridiculous Crime. It's
a delightful exploration of all things kind of absurd in
the world of true crime, but with none of the
kind of you know, misery, porn that's so much of
other true crime podcasts tend to lean on what else
we got. Well, we also have Ridiculous Romance with our
(28:43):
pals Diana and Eli Uh. They are the nicest couple.
They're married in real life, and every week they bring
you stories of the strangest kinds of romance. It's not
always amorous either, because love is a many splendored thing.
And while you're doing all that, why not check out
(29:05):
some guest appearances, most recently by Noel, also by me
as well on Ridiculous News by Mark Kendall and Bill Whorley. Correct.
They do a couple of different times of episodes every week,
including news round up episodes, which is what I was
lucky enough to be a guest on, wherein they just
sort of explore some of the headlines of the week
(29:26):
through a very thoughtful and dare I say, ridiculous lens,
and I got to read some kind of mundane headlights
and and silly voices. So that was a lot of fun.
So definitely check out all of these peer podcasts and
the Ridiculous Extended Universe, And as always, thanks to our
super producer, Mr Max Williams. Thanks to Alex Williams who
(29:47):
composed our track. Thanks to Jonathan Strickland, our own little
and Dora of Ridiculous History and Dora from Bewitched. Samantha's
Mother m Yeah, as soon as uh Samantha's uh kind
of crazy mother in law played by the incredibly named,
very uh charming Agnes Moorehead also huge thanks to Christopher
(30:11):
Hasciotis here in spirit. Got to see corporeally the other
day for a little git together thinking at our new offices. Um,
hope to have him on the show very soon. We've
been teasing that for a minute, but uh, our man's
been a little bit slammed. But I'm gonna get back
to that very soon. And in the meantime, of course,
thanks also to use Jeff Coat, thanks to Gabe Bluesier,
(30:31):
thanks to Dr Zach, thanks to Jeff Bartlett's, thanks to
I'll say the one and only Mr Casey Pegram. Alright, folks,
stay tuned for our upcoming episodes and uh hey, maybe
catch us on the road to Andorra. We'll see you next. Topoix.
(30:54):
For more podcasts for my heart Radio, visit the I
heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to
your favor right shows.
Ridiculous History News
Hosts And Creators
Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang
Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.