Never mind the Pandora Papers let’s look at the Andorra Papers where health is wealth.
It’s timely to focus on the Pyrenees country and not just because England’s footballers are heading there on Saturday.
No, Andorra la Vella is in our thoughts because it has been voted Europe’s capital of health.
So what qualifies you to top such a list?
The Health List
Well, the number of gyms, healthy restaurants, water quality, air pollutions and total hours of sunlight per year.
Puma has compiled a table of 52 of the European capitals.
And in in the interests of fairness we’re told the number of healthy eateries have been scaled appropriately by population.
All to give a fair result.
So without further do a trawl through our healthy (and unhealthy) cities.
And a deeper dive into Andorra.
Small is best
It’s the 11th smallest country in the world by population (77.006) and 16th in span (181sq miles).
But it has 10 million visitors a year mainly for its skiing,
With its capital 1,023m above sea level.
And as we all know that is as healthy an activity as you’ll find, as long as you stay on your feet.
It’s also a tax haven which our Pandora ‘pals’ clearly know,
All of which contributed to having the world’s highest life expectancy of 81 in 2013 according to the Global Burden of Disease Study.
And so you want to see where your city sits in the table.
London’s trailing
If you’re from one of the three ‘other’British capitals you have bragging rights on London.
The Big Smoke is back in 43rd (ouch!)
Edinburgh in Scotland is 11th, Belfast in Northern Ireland is 16th and Cardiff in Wales 27th.
With my old stomping ground of Dublin in Ireland squeezed in 25th.
Take a bow if you’re Lisbon, Bern, Tallinn or Reykjavic.
While Monaco, Amsterdam, Helsinki, Luxembourg and Nicosia make up the top ten.
And finally
I’ve no skin in the game for Nur-Sultan (that’s Kazakhstan), Baku (Azerbaijan) or Moscow, though no list will put me off going there.
But they are down in the bottom five, along with Sarajevo in Bosnia & Herzegovina (couldn’t have been when I visited).
While I’m keeping it from my pal, Turkish Airlines’ finest Onur and my barber Mohamed but Ankara in Turkey is last.
So when you’re watching the England game just think Andorra Papers where health is wealth.
