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By carThe original uploader was Jsanchezes at Spanish Wikipedia. — CC BY-SA 3.0 (Wikimedia Commons)

The Baztán valley

Navarre, Spain · Spain

Fifteen villages in a single municipality, in northern Navarre against the French border, in a valley so green they call it the Navarrese Switzerland. Here in 1522 one of the last Navarrese strongholds fell, and with it the hope of winning back the kingdom. Here the agotes lived set apart for centuries, made to enter church by a different door. And over the pass lies Zugarramurdi, where in 1610 the Inquisition mounted the largest witchcraft trial in Spanish history.

3 days2 nights64 km8 stopsBest season: Autumn, for the beech woods, and spring, with the waterfalls full and the meadows newly green. Summer is mild but busiest. And it rains all year: here that is not bad weather, it is what explains the landscape.

Day 1The garden, the viewpoint and the capital Day 2The outcasts and the castle of Amaiur Day 3Over the pass

Day 1 · The garden, the viewpoint and the capital

Bertiz, Ziga and Elizondo · 24 km

The original uploader was Jsanchezes at Spanish Wikipedia. — CC BY-SA 3.0 (Wikimedia Commons)

Bertiz estate

nature

Navarre's first natural park, two thousand hectares of beech and oak with a historic garden at the entrance. Its last owners planted it with species brought from half the world: sequoias, ginkgos, water lilies. In 1949 the owner donated it to the people of Navarre on condition that it be kept intact.

Tip

The garden takes an hour and is what almost everyone visits. If you have time, walk into the wood on one of the marked paths: the park is far more than its gate.

20 min to the next stop · 12 km

Euskalduna — CC BY-SA 3.0 (Wikimedia Commons)

Ziga

viewpoints

A small village with the church of San Lorenzo dominating the houses, and on the way out the valley's best-known viewpoint: from there you see the whole Baztán, green meadows and white farmhouses scattered into the distance.

Tip

It is a twenty-minute stop and worth making before Elizondo rather than after: grasping the shape of the valley from above makes everything else read better.

15 min to the next stop · 9 km

Euskalduna — CC BY-SA 3.0 (Wikimedia Commons)

Elizondo

culture

The valley's capital, split down the middle by the river Baztán, with stone houses bearing coats of arms on both banks. Many people now know it through Dolores Redondo's Baztán trilogy, and there are routes around the books' settings.

Tip

Half the valley's population lives here, along with almost all the services: restaurants, shops, petrol station. It is the only sensible base for the two nights.

Day 2 · The outcasts and the castle of Amaiur

Arizkun, Erratzu and Amaiur · 15 km

Euskalduna — CC BY 3.0 (Wikimedia Commons)

Arizkun and the Bozate quarter

history

Bozate was for centuries the quarter of the agotes, a group shunned across the Pyrenees who were made to live apart, enter church by a separate door and use their own holy water font. Nobody knows for certain where the stigma came from. They ended up the finest carpenters and stonemasons in the valley, and in Bozate stands the Santxotena park-museum, devoted to Basque mythology.

Tip

In Arizkun's church you can still see the side door they had to use. It is one of those things that are not signposted and that change the visit completely.

5 min to the next stop · 3 km

France64160 — Public domain (Wikimedia Commons)

Erratzu and the Xorroxin falls

nature

The valley's easternmost village, with sandstone farmhouses and wooden balconies, and from it an easy hour-and-a-half round trip to the Xorroxin falls, at the source of the river Baztán, among beeches and ferns.

Tip

The path is level and works with children, but it turns to mud as soon as it rains. Wear footwear you do not mind dirtying, because it rains here in any season.

10 min to the next stop · 6 km

Uranzu — CC BY-SA 4.0 (Wikimedia Commons)

Amaiur

history

You enter the village through a stone arch, and there is a single cobbled street with farmhouses on both sides. Up on the hill lie the remains of the castle where in 1522 one of the last strongholds of the kingdom of Navarre held out against Castilian troops. When it fell, the last attempt to win back the part of Navarre south of the Pyrenees came to an end, and it stayed in Castilian hands for good.

Tip

The village mill still grinds and can be visited by prior arrangement: they sell maize flour and make talos on the spot. Call ahead, because it does not open every day.

Day 3 · Over the pass

Urdax and Zugarramurdi · 25 km

Josu Goñi Etxabe — Public domain (Wikimedia Commons)

Urdazubi / Urdax

heritage

A village of white houses with red timbering on the far side of the Otsondo pass, already in the Xareta region and outside the Baztán. It grew around a 12th-century Premonstratensian monastery, and beneath the village lie the Ikaburua caves, carved by the river Urtxuma.

Tip

Note this: Urdax and Zugarramurdi are NOT Baztán. They are separate municipalities on the other side of the pass, usually included in the same route for proximity, not because they are the same valley.

10 min to the next stop · 4 km

GaÃ«l Chardon — CC BY-SA 2.0 (Wikimedia Commons)

Zugarramurdi

history

In 1610 the Inquisition prosecuted dozens of this village's residents, accused of gathering for witches' sabbaths in a cave on its outskirts. It ended in the Logroño auto-da-fé, the largest witchcraft trial in Spanish history. The cave is still there, four hundred metres away: a tunnel more than a hundred metres long with the Infernuko Erreka stream running through it.

Tip

The Witch Museum is in the village and tells the trial from the court records, not from the legend. Seeing it before going down to the cave completely changes what you see there.

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