Navarre

Navarre (Spanish: Navarra, Basque: Nafarroa) is a region in Northern Spain bordered by France, the Basque Country, Aragon, and La Rioja.

For other places with the same name, see Navarre (disambiguation).

Cities

• 🌍 Pamplona — made famous by Ernest Hemmingway in 'The Sun Also Rises.' It hosts the festival of San Fermin, with the running of the bulls (el encierro). The festival is celebrated every year for a week beginning on July 7.
• 🌍 Tudela — the second largest city in Navarra with a population not higher than 40,000 people. Tudela is 94 km (60 miles) far from Pamplona, it's linked by a good highway and there are good connections by bus and train. It's used to be a big center of vegetables production although industry has been developed in the city. It has a beautiful cathedral from the Romanic and Gothic period.

Other destinations

Monasteria de la Oliva, Carcastillo, Navarre

Understand

The regions of Navarre

• Pirineos de Navarra (Pyrenees of Navarre) and Montaña (Mountain zone): The north part of Navarra where there is a lot of mountains, like "Mesa de los Tres Reyes" (2.424 m.) and "Pico de Ory" (2.104 m.). This is the "Basque" and "green" Navarra where in many villages and small towns Basque is spoken and there is continental weather. It is bordered by France and Basque Country.
• Comarca de Pamplona (Pamplona metropolitan area): The most populous area of Navarre (half of the people of Navarra live here), with Pamplona, Barañáin or Burlada. It is an urban area and is right in the centre of the region.
• Tierra Estella (Estella Land): The historic part of Navarre with many medieval monuments and towns. The way to Santiago is here. The most important towns are Estella, Puente La Reina and Viana.

Ujué

• Zona Media (Centre Area): It is a transition area between mountain zone and south zone, with important historic towns like Olite (which was the capital of the Kingdom of Navarre, with a wonderful Palace-Castle), Tafalla, Ujue, Andosilla and San Martín de Unx.
• Ribera de Navarra (South of Navarre): The south part of Navarre, the only area that was occupied by the Muslims who founded Tudela, the capital of this zone and the second city of Navarre. It is one of the most important areas of agriculture in Navarre and Spain. There is also a desert called the Bardenas Reales, a pale yellow landscape of canyons, mesas and plateaux.

Talk

Both Spanish and Basque (Español and Euskera) are official languages in Navarra. Spanish is more widespread than Basque in Navarra, and everybody can speak Spanish in this land, but Basque is also spoken by a wide part of the population, especially in the north of Navarra and Pamplona, as a native language.

Get in

By plane

Pamplona (PNA ^IATA) has an airport that connects it with Madrid Barajas and Barcelona El Prat by regular flights. There are also connections with some other cities like Lisbon. There are good, regular bus connections with its two closest international airports in Bilbao (BIO ^IATA, Spain) and Biarritz (BIQ ^IATA, France).

By train

Pamplona has quite good railway system, although high speed trains won't be working until 2012, it has several trains every day to Madrid (3h), Barcelona (4h), Zaragoza (2h) and so on.

Get around

See

One of the many turquoise pools on the hike to the source of the River Urederra

🌍 Nacedero del Urederra, National Park of Urbasa-Andia. A beautiful hike, alongside some ethereal, unreal looking turquoise pools and through some truly breathtaking views within the National Park of Urbasa-Andia. It is a easy 5km walk (3 hours round trip walk) which takes you from the small village of Baquedano to the source of the River Urederra; a waterfall easily reached by foot for families.
This is not the only hike to do in the park, which has a variety of walks of various lengths (up to 24km) and difficulty among some spectacular countryside.
Access to the park is regulated for conservation purposes but free to access and you should book on their website prior to going. There are 450 tickets available a day, of which 60% are bookable online, with the remaining allocated to those who turn up.
You can get to the park either by renting a car and driving to the area where there is a small car park (3 EUR for parking) or by public transport where from San Sebastian, the trip to Urederra can be broken into two legs.
The first leg is to Alsasua, which is easily reached by train or bus from San Sebastian, both taking roughly 90 minutes.
Bus timetables for Alsa are available on their website. However, the Alsa bus stop in Alsasua is not marked (and worse its location on a map may be incorrectly marked as being on Calle San Juan) but it is outside a residential home for elderly people on Calle Idertzagain.
The second leg involves a 30 minute taxi ride (40 EUR one way) from Alsasua, ([phone], Taxi Goikoetxea - Spanish-speaking only) to Baquedano. If you have not put together a picnic, the bakeries and cafes along San Juan make for a good choice as Baquedano has no shops.
Remember to arrange in good time the taxi ride back to Alsasua for the bus/train back. Free. (updated Apr 2017)

Do

Eat

Navarra has a very good reputation for its food and restaurants sharing it mostly with the Basque cook. These are some of the most typical products of Navarre:

Sparragus eaten with mayonnaise.

Alcachofas vegetable typical from Tudela.

Piquillo peppers in the village of Lodosa, really tasty!

Txistorra/Chistorra is a kind of red sausage (made with pork), delicious.

Drink

Patxaran is the most typical alcoholic drink of Navarra. It's distilled from blackthorns and it has an intense red colour. It has approximately 30% alcohol.

Wines are also very famous in this region producing wines with Rioja label, and also with their own certification label (D.O. Navarra).

Sleep

Stay safe

Go next

• North: across the Pyrenees to Nouvelle-Aquitaine, in France
• East: to Aragon and Catalonia
• South: to central Spain and the capital Madrid
• West: to the Basque Country, Bilbao and San Sebastian