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The Bardenas Reales

Navarre, Spain · Spain

Forty-two thousand hectares of desert in the middle of Navarre, almost treeless, with gullies and clay pinnacles that water has carved down to needles. It has been a Biosphere Reserve since 2000 and at its centre sits, incongruously, an active military firing range. The land belongs to nobody and to everybody: it is held by a community of villages, valleys and a monastery that have shared its use since the Middle Ages. Around it, the Ribera: Tudela, Olite and Ujué.

3 days2 nights125 km7 stopsBest season: Spring and autumn. In summer it passes forty degrees and there is not a scrap of shade in the whole park; in winter it gets dark early and you must be out by half past four. The light of early morning and late afternoon is what gives the Bardenas their colour.

Day 1The Ribera before the desert Day 2The Bardenas day Day 3The palace and the fortress-church

Day 1 · The Ribera before the desert

Tudela and Arguedas · 20 km

Txemari (Argazki). — CC0 (Wikimedia Commons)

Tudela

history

Navarre's second city and the capital of the Ribera. It was Muslim for three centuries and afterwards the three religions lived side by side here: the cathedral was raised over the main mosque and keeps its Romanesque cloister and the Doorway of Judgement, with over a hundred scenes carved into the archivolts.

Tip

Eat here before heading up to the Bardenas: Tudela is the vegetable capital of Navarre and in season there is artichoke, cardoon and Ribera asparagus on every menu.

15 min to the next stop · 16 km

Araceli Merino — CC BY-SA 3.0 (Wikimedia Commons)

Arguedas

heritage

The gateway to the Bardenas, and a village with dozens of caves dug into the sandstone slope above the houses. They were lived in until the 1960s, and some can be visited.

Tip

It is the last place with a petrol station and a supermarket before the park, and the sensible place to sleep. Inside the Bardenas there is absolutely nothing: no water, no shade, no services.

Day 2 · The Bardenas day

Centre, perimeter track and Castildetierra · 45 km

Adbar — CC BY-SA 3.0 (Wikimedia Commons)

The information centre and the Aguilares viewpoint

nature

The compulsory first stop, at the Aguilares estate, where they hand out the free map and warn you if any track is closed. A few metres away is the Bardena Blanca lookout, the first time you see the whole landscape: gullies, flat-topped hills and not one tree.

Tip

Ask here about the state of the tracks before going in, because after rain they turn to mud and are sometimes closed. And take the map: inside there is no reliable signal.

10 min to the next stop · 5 km

Ant°AM — CC BY-SA 4.0 (Wikimedia Commons)

The perimeter track and Castildetierra

nature

A dirt track of some thirty kilometres circling the Bardena Blanca along the edge of the military firing range, which occupies the centre of the park and is restricted. Near the start of the circuit stands Castildetierra: a clay pinnacle still upright because a slab of hard rock on top shields it from the rain. Everything that stood around it has already been washed away.

Tip

The track suits ordinary cars but not sports cars or very low ones, and the limit is forty an hour. The circuit takes a good two hours with stops. And do not climb the pinnacles: that is what is destroying them.

5 min to the next stop · 1 km

Andrés Flajszer — CC BY-SA 3.0 es (Wikimedia Commons)

The Cortinas ravine

viewpoints

Just behind Castildetierra, a short path of little over a kilometre drops into the ravine and shows the Bardenas from within: clay walls scored by water, cracked ground and silence. It is the only part of the route done on foot.

Tip

Take water and a hat even though it is short: there is not a scrap of shade anywhere in this park, and in summer the ground reflects like an oven.

Day 3 · The palace and the fortress-church

Olite and Ujué · 60 km

César Viteri Ramirez from Madrid, Spain — CC BY-SA 2.0 (Wikimedia Commons)

Olite

history

The royal palace of the kings of Navarre, which Charles III the Noble had built in the early 15th century and which was in its day one of the most lavish courts in Europe: it had hanging gardens, an aviary, a lion house and an ice pit for keeping snow through the summer. It was burned in 1813 to stop the French using it.

Tip

What you visit today is largely a 20th-century reconstruction, carried out between 1937 and 1967, and it shows. Even so, the tangle of towers and passageways is among the most impressive things in Spain.

20 min to the next stop · 18 km

Adbar — CC BY-SA 3.0 (Wikimedia Commons)

Ujué

heritage

An entire medieval village perched on a hilltop, with a fortress-church commanding the whole Ribera and a parapet walk from which, on clear days, you can see as far as the Moncayo and the Pyrenees. Inside lies the heart of Charles II of Navarre, buried there at his own request.

Tip

Buy migas de pastor and caramelised almonds, which is what they make here. And climb to the church parapet: it rings the building from above and is the finest view of the whole trip.

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