Soldeu () is a village and

ski resort A ski resort is a resort developed for skiing, snowboarding, and other winter sports. In Europe, most ski resorts are towns or villages in or adjacent to a ski area–a mountainous area with pistes (ski trails) and a ski lift system. In North Am ...

Andorra Andorra, officially the Principality of Andorra, is a Sovereignty, sovereign landlocked country on the Iberian Peninsula, in the eastern Pyrenees in Southwestern Europe, Andorra–France border, bordered by France to the north and Spain to A ...

in the

Pyrenees The Pyrenees are a mountain range straddling the border of France and Spain. They extend nearly from their union with the Cantabrian Mountains to Cap de Creus on the Mediterranean coast, reaching a maximum elevation of at the peak of Aneto. ...

mountains, located in the

parish A parish is a territorial entity in many Christianity, Christian denominations, constituting a division within a diocese. A parish is under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of a priest#Christianity, priest, often termed a parish pries ...

Canillo Canillo () is one of the seven parishes which make up Andorra. Canillo is also the name of the main town of the parish. The parish is considered the religious center of Andorra with the Sanctuary and Chapel of Our Lady of Meritxell, patron sain ...

Overview

It comes alive in the winter months as a ski town, and is part of the Grand Valira ski resort, the largest in the Pyrenees with of ski runs.Grandvalira
Soldeu, Grandvalira
''grandvalira.com'', 2011. According to ''

The Sunday Times ''The Sunday Times'' is a British Sunday newspaper whose circulation makes it the largest in Britain's quality press market category. It was founded in 1821 as ''The New Observer''. It is published by Times Newspapers Ltd, a subsidiary of N ...

'', Soldeu is one of the three best budget skiing resorts in Europe.S Newsom (2009)
Three of the best budget resorts—Europe's top ski resorts are hideously expensive—but we have a solution
''The Sunday Times'', 4 October 2009. (Last accessed 2009-10-08) The ski area links to

Encamp Encamp () is one of the parishes of Andorra, located on the Valira d'Orient river. It is also the name of the main town in the parish. Other settlements include Vila, El Pas de la Casa, El Tremat, La Mosquera and Les Bons. As of 2004, it ha ...

, El Tarter, Grau Roig and Pas de la Casa. The Soldeu Ski School has a large number of native English speaking instructors and has won awards for the quality of its tuition. The village is at an

elevation The elevation of a geographic location (geography), ''location'' is its height above or below a fixed reference point, most commonly a reference geoid, a mathematical model of the Earth's sea level as an equipotential gravitational equipotenti ...

above sea level Height above mean sea level is a measure of a location's vertical distance (height, elevation or altitude) in reference to a vertical datum based on a historic mean sea level. In geodesy, it is formalized as orthometric height. The zero level ...

and the top of the ski area is at . The

gondola The gondola (, ; , ) is a traditional, flat-bottomed Venetian rowing boat, well suited to the conditions of the Venetian lagoon. It is typically propelled by a gondolier, who uses a rowing oar, which is not fastened to the hull, in a scul ...

from the village rises to , where the ski and board schools as well as restaurants are located. From there, it is possible to ski to the top of the El Tarter gondola or the village of El Tarter itself via the blue-rated 'gall de bosc' run. The village has various hotels, bars, restaurants, as well as ski and snowboard shops. It is more family orientated than neighbouring Pas de la Casa. The native language is Catalan.

World Cup racing

Soldeu hosted

World Cup A world cup is a global sporting competition in which the participant entities – usually international teams or individuals representing their countries – compete for the title of world champion. The event most associated with the name is ...

alpine events for the first time in February

2012 2012 was designated as: *International Year of Cooperatives *International Year of Sustainable Energy for All Events January *January 4 – The Cicada 3301 internet hunt begins. * January 12 – Peaceful protests begin in the R ...

. Three women's races were scheduled, two

giant slalom Giant slalom (GS) is an alpine skiing and alpine snowboarding competitive discipline. It involves racing between sets of poles ("gates") spaced at a greater distance from each other than in Slalom skiing, slalom but less than in Super-G. Giant sl ...

s and a slalom. The additional GS was due to a cancellation at Courchevel in mid-December, but was also cancelled at Soldeu due to extremely high winds on Friday.Ski Racing.com
- Strong winds cancel women's World Cup GS in Andorra, slalom rescheduled - 2012-02-10 Women's races were hosted again in

2016 2016 was designated as: * International Year of Pulses by the sixty-eighth session of the United Nations General Assembly. * International Year of Global Understanding (IYGU) by the International Council for Science (ICSU), the Internationa ...

: a

super-G Super giant slalom, or super-G, is a racing discipline of alpine skiing. Along with the faster downhill, it is regarded as a "speed" event, in contrast to the technical events giant slalom and slalom. It debuted as an official World Cup event ...

and a combined in late February. The World Cup finals (nine events) of

2019 This was the year in which the first known human case of COVID-19 was documented, preceding COVID-19 pandemic, the pandemic which was declared by the World Health Organization the following year. Up to that point, 2019 had been described as ...

were held Soldeu in mid-March. There is also a possibility to host Alpine skiing at the Winter Olympics with other events in nearby European countries in 2030 or later.

References

External links

Official website of Grandvalira - Soldeu, Andorra
{{coord, 42, 34, 37, N, 1, 40, 02, E, region:AD_type:city, display=title Populated places in Andorra Canillo Ski areas and resorts in Andorra Pyrenees