Our Lady of Meritxell, Minor basilica in Canillo, Andorra

Our Lady of Meritxell is a sanctuary in the village of Meritxell, Canillo parish, built to Ricard Bofill's design and inaugurated in 1976. Its front is a wide arch of stacked grey and tan stone, with a second arch behind and below; above rise thick white curved forms, one capped by a dark rounded metal roof, and a dark grey tiled roof slopes beneath the arches. A square opening in the stone wall on the left frames tree-covered slopes.

A Romanesque chapel stood here before the second half of the 12th century; its single nave and south porch have been excavated, and the bulk of the later structure dated from 1658, with a cambril added in the 19th century. On the night of 8–9 September 1972, after the aplec, a fire destroyed the sanctuary and the 12th-century polychrome wooden carving of the Virgin. Ricard Bofill was commissioned to rebuild; his far grander original scheme, with a viaduct, artificial lake and amphitheatre, was only partly realised, and the new sanctuary opened in 1976.

The Virgin of Meritxell was declared patroness of Andorra by the General Council of the Valleys in 1873, and her crowned image is honoured each 8 September, Andorra's national day, when the parishes gather at the sanctuary. The name Meritxell may derive from the Latin meridianus, "midday", for the sunny slope where the shrine stands. A replica of the 12th-century Romanesque Virgin destroyed in the 1972 fire is still venerated here.

The basilica stands at the Meritxell site in Canillo parish, reached by road from Canillo or Encamp; the old chapel and the new building stand side by side. The 8 September national feast and the first Sunday of May gathering bring crowds, so plan around them. The retrospective display of photographs and the replica of the Virgin are inside the sanctuary.

The sanctuary holds Bibles and New Testaments in 1,900 languages from 178 countries, gathered over 26 years by the Andorran former banker Pere Roquet. Among them are a North Korean clandestine edition, a Braille Bible, one in sign language, a manga version, Robert Crumb's illustrated Bible, the world's smallest Bible and one in Minecraft format.