A couple of years back we were staying on the Costa Brava and decided that we didn't need to rush home and opted to cross the border at Le Perthus instead of the motorway. Big mistake. The was an hour's queue going into it on the Spanish side. We thought that was bad until we got out into France and there was 12 miles of queue waiting to get in from the French side! Whil passing through the town we constantly had to brake to avoid hitting ampaging Frenchmen with shopping trollies full of Ricard (they didn't seem to be buying anything else that day) trying to get them back to there cars. There didn't appear t be any parking that we could see so cars lined the street on both sides and for a mile either side of the town.

O my God.

Thanks for the info,

Regards,

Billyboy.

For shopping Le Perthus beats Andorre hands down
BUT

arrive BEFORE 8;30am or those queues will get you and you won't be able to park near the shops
there are Two BIG car parks at tthe top of the hill but street parking is better unless you want to mountian climb with armfuls of stuff which feels like this


the only stuff we didn't find there (been going for last few years) is Electronic or camera or computers BUT in Spain near Girona there is a BIG Electromengere that sells everything that uses 240v or batteries from computers to fairy lights

The shopping for Alcohol is enormous with huge discounts on multibuys (i.e 12 2L bottles of spirits in prepacks)

Tobacco is reasonably cheap (especially REAL cigars - Cuban or Dominican) to but the easiest places to buy it are the supermarches NOT the Tabac shops --there's always a queue

All in all don't forget your passport and credit card you'll need them we tend to spend around £200-£300 when we go