Three summers ago I wrote about bringing the children to Andorra in July, to explore what these mountains can offer families once the snow has gone. That trip was a revelation. This one was different, and the reason is simple: the kids are now twelve, and twelve changes everything.
Height limits stop being a problem. Weight minimums stop being a problem. The things they stood and watched other people do last time are fully on the menu, and because they can stay up later, a summer holiday in Andorra stops being a daytime activity and starts having evenings in it too.
So here is what a July week looked like this year, with two twelve year olds who have grown out of the gentle version of everything.
Back to Mont Magic, But Faster
We started where we started last time, heading up the gondola to the family park at Canillo, and it was a useful reminder of how much of this place scales with age. The pedal karts and the bouncy castles that once ate a whole morning got a polite nod on the way past. The zip line did not.
Last time they rode it sitting upright, which is fun. This year they were big enough to go horizontally, face down, and that is a completely different experience. It stops being a ride and starts being flying, out across the mountains with Lake Forn below you. Depending on your ticket you get one ride included – it’s a small supplement to go horizontally, but absolutely worth it.
The Magic Gliss mountain coaster is still there and still great, and remains the one attraction nobody in this family has ever needed persuading onto. We also took the Portella chairlift up to the viewpoint again, because those panoramic views are as spectacular as ever, and the kids love seeing the ski slope signage without any snow.
Down at the lake, the canoes and pedaloes were as welcome as ever and it was lovely to be back on the water, but the new one for us this year was the Red Shark, which is best described as a cross between a bike and a paddleboard. It sounds like it should not work but once we found our balance it was a fun new experience out on the water.
Mountain bikes are also included now, with a set of trails running around the lake and off through the forest. Importantly there are beginner routes in the mix, so this is not only for children who already ride confidently. Mine are casual cyclists at best and had no trouble at all.
Naturland: The World’s Longest Toboggan, Still Not a Fan of Heights!
Naturland, over in Sant Julia de Loria towards the Spanish border, was new to the kids – the headline attraction is the Tobotronc, and the claim attached to it is not a modest one: it is the longest alpine toboggan in the world. Five point three kilometres in total, dropping four hundred metres through the La Rabassa forest, at speeds of up to around thirty five kilometres an hour.
Depending on your chosen ticket, you get one ride included, and even now the children are twelve they still have to ride with an adult, which means the adult is the one holding the brakes. I was lobbied about it at length on the way up: no braking, whatever happens. So we didn’t, give or take a couple of corners towards the bottom where I quietly overruled the campaign. It takes long enough that you stop thinking of it as a ride and start thinking of it as a journey, winding down through the trees with the forest flicking past. This was the standout of the whole trip, and I would have happily queued up and gone round again.
The zip line here is the Eclipsi, brand new for 2026 and now the longest in Andorra at six hundred and twenty five metres. After Canillo the children considered themselves qualified zip line critics, and they gave it full marks.
And then there was Airtrekk. If you read my previous summer holiday article you’ll remember that I was thoroughly outdone on the high ropes at Pal, wobbling my way round while my children waited at the bottom. I had quietly hoped that story was finished. It was not. Airtrekk is billed as the largest Sky Trail in Europe, fifty four different walkways across three difficulty levels, reaching thirteen and a half metres off the ground. I was talked onto it, however once again, left behind by two twelve year olds who have no visible relationship with fear. You’re clipped in throughout and it is entirely safe, a fact my brain declined to accept somewhere around the second platform.
Caldea: The Bit I Did Not Expect to Love Most
After days of harnesses and helmets, being in warm water outside as the light went down was exactly what we needed. The mountains slowly darken around you, the air cools, the water does not, and nobody is asking to do anything else. We ordered from the poolside bar and drank in the water, smoothies for them and a glass of cava for me, the perfect way to relax into the spa bubbles.
If you have been thinking of Caldea as a rainy day fallback, I would gently suggest rethinking it as an evening in its own right. There is more about it on our Caldea page.
Radio Andorra by Cirque du Soleil
The other advantage of older children is that a 10pm start is no longer out of the question, which meant we could go and see Cirque du Soleil.
Each summer Andorra gets its own production, and this year’s was Radio Andorra, built around the legendary radio station that defined an era here, following two strangers who request the same song. Acrobatics, live music, tap dancing, magic. The children were transfixed, and so was I. The acrobatics in particular are the sort of thing you find yourself watching with your mouth open.
It clearly landed with everyone else too: over 50,000 people saw it across 22 performances in July, and it scored the highest audience rating the show has had here, nine out of ten. This year it ran from 3rd July to 2nd August, so if you are planning a July trip it is worth building your dates around it. Each year has a new theme, and this is definitely something we’d all love to experience again.
Finishing the Tamarros, At Last
When I last wrote about this, we had found five of the seven Tamarros, the mystical creatures hidden one to each parish, tasked with protecting Andorra’s natural environment. I signed off saying the children were insisting we come back for the last couple – it took us three years, but we finished it!
The system is unchanged and still quietly brilliant: a guidebook with cartoons, puzzles and a map, a stamp to collect at each creature, and a phone holder at every location so you can set a timer and take a family photo. It remains the single most effective way I have found of getting children to volunteer for a walk. What I did not expect was that it would still work on twelve year olds, but the half finished stamp book turned out to be a powerful motivator.
With all seven stamps collected we took the book back to the tourist information centre to claim the prize, and there was a choice to make: a yo-yo, tattoos, or dominoes, all Tamarro-themed, obviously. Three years of unfinished business, closed.
Same Mountains, Different Holiday
What struck me most is that this was recognisably the same place I wrote about in 2023, and yet almost nothing about the holiday was the same. The parks that were a playground at nine become an adrenaline course at twelve. The evenings, which we barely used last time, turned into some of the best parts of the week.
So if you came here from that first article, or if you have been putting off a summer trip because you assumed your children had outgrown a mountain holiday, I would say the opposite is true. Andorra in summer gets better as they get bigger. Have a look at our summer pages and start thinking about how you would put a trip together. As for us, there is still a Tibetan bridge at Canillo I have been promising to walk for three years, and now that they have had a taste of the trails around the lake, I suspect the downhill biking at Pal is going to be non-negotiable – it looks like we’ll have to come back again next summer!
