For years the holiday apartments in Andorra tourist industry was focused exclusively on winter sports. But, as Phil Maynard discovered, the principality is finally waking up from its summertime siesta

It was only when the sun came out and the snow thawed that Andorra truly froze. Ski lifts ground to a halt, shutters went down on hotel windows and a nation went into a suspended animation before coming back to life with the first snowfall.

So it went in Andorra for summer after sleepy summer. But now the tiny Pyrenean principality is peeling off its collective ski suit and goggles and peering into a brave new world of warm-weather activities. For a place where the only industry to speak of is tourism, shutting down for half the year is no longer an option, so off I go to see how it aims to attract the summer crowds - and, better still, keep them coming back.

I arrive by road; this landlocked nation without an airport or railway station is only accessible by motorway from either Barcelona or Toulouse through a series of tunnels cut through the mountains. Immediately Andorra is spectacular. As we approach from the Spanish side, my driver points to the little stadium to our right that is the home of Andorran football. The team, incidentally, were due to appear on the British radar as England's first opponents at the new Wembley: a stadium which, when finally completed, will be able to comfortably hold Andorra's entire population of just over 70,000.

As if to compound the impact of the smallness of the country, our first stop is the parliament building off Andorra's main shopping strip in Andorra la Vella (the capital, if you can call it that). Set in stone and lined with local pine, the debating chamber is a monument to small government: there's no pomp: just a dozen or so chairs and a table. In fact, the principality hardly needs to be governed at all - there's virtually no crime or unemployment, and income tax is zero.

However, culture and history amount to virtually zero too, so this is to be my only diversion from Andorra's leisure pursuits, which begin with a vengeance at the crack of dawn the following morning.