Navarra Travel Guide: Pamplona, the Pyrenees, and the Spain Most People Only Know From Hemingway

Most Americans know Navarra from one thing: Ernest Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises, and the Running of the Bulls in Pamplona that the novel made famous. That association is not wrong, exactly. San Fermín is real, Pamplona is genuinely worth visiting, and the running itself is exactly as chaotic and exhilarating as advertised. But building an entire picture of Navarra around one week in July is like understanding the Basque Country only through its pintxos bars. It tells part of the story and misses most of it.

Navarra is a small autonomous community in the north of Spain, tucked between the Basque Country to the west, Aragón to the east, La Rioja to the south, and the Pyrenees and France to the north. It is a region of extraordinary geographic variety: high Pyrenean peaks and beech forests in the north, fertile river valleys and medieval towns in the center, semi-desert badlands in the south. It sits at the confluence of Atlantic, Mediterranean, and Continental climates, which gives it an agricultural diversity that shows up directly on the plate.

It is also, for travelers willing to look past the bull run, one of the most quietly rewarding regions in northern Spain. At Travel-Casa Spain, Navarra is exactly the kind of place we like to write about.

Pamplona: More Than the Running of the Bulls

Pamplona is a compact, confident city of about 200,000 people that has been the capital of Navarra since the medieval Kingdom of Navarre made it so. The old town, the Casco Antiguo, is enclosed within massive Renaissance fortifications and is genuinely beautiful outside of festival week. The Gothic cathedral of Santa María la Real, begun in the 14th century, has a cloister considered one of the finest examples of Gothic craftsmanship in Spain. The old citadel, a star-shaped 16th-century fortress, now functions as a park and is one of the more pleasant public spaces in any Spanish city.

The pintxos culture of Pamplona is serious. The city sits at the intersection of Basque and Navarrese food traditions and the bars of the old quarter serve the kind of food, on small pieces of bread or skewered on toothpicks, that makes standing up at a bar counter feel like one of life's better decisions. The Semana del Pincho in March is a city-wide pintxos competition that draws food travelers from across Spain.

About San Fermín itself: it runs from July 6 to 14 each year. The encierro, the daily bull run through the streets of the old town, takes place each morning at 8 AM. It is 875 meters of narrow streets, six bulls, and a few hundred people who have typically been awake all night. Hemingway attended repeatedly beginning in the 1920s and the festival's international reputation has never quite recovered from his affection for it. If you want to experience it, book accommodation at least a year in advance. The city fills completely.

Olite: The Medieval Castle Town

Forty kilometers south of Pamplona, Olite is one of the most striking small towns in northern Spain. The Royal Palace of Olite, a Gothic castle of towers and turrets that was the seat of the Kings of Navarre in the 15th century, dominates the town and the surrounding wine country. It is partly converted into a parador, one of Spain's historic state hotels, which means you can stay in a medieval royal palace and drink the local wine on a terrace overlooking the vineyards. That is an entirely reasonable way to spend a night.

The town around the castle is quiet, well-preserved, and produces excellent wines under the Navarra Denomination of Origin. The Vendimia festival in late August or early September celebrates the grape harvest with events in and around the castle.

The Navarrese Pyrenees: Forests, Passes, and the Camino

The northern third of Navarra rises into the Pyrenees and becomes a different world. The beech forests of the Selva de Irati, one of the largest and best-preserved primeval beech and fir forests in Europe, are extraordinary in autumn when the canopy turns gold and copper. The forest covers over 17,000 hectares on the border with France and sees a fraction of the visitors that comparable natural areas in southern Europe attract.

The mountain passes of the Navarrese Pyrenees carry some of the most historically significant routes in Spain. The Puerto de Ibañeta, near the French border town of Roncesvalles, was where Charlemagne's rearguard was ambushed in 778 in the battle immortalized in the Song of Roland. Today the same pass is where most pilgrims walking the French Way of the Camino de Santiago cross into Spain, descending to Roncesvalles after the crossing from Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port. The monastery at Roncesvalles has been receiving pilgrims and travelers for over a thousand years.

The Camino de Santiago passes through Navarra for several days before crossing into La Rioja, passing through the walled town of Sangüesa, the pilgrimage hospital town of Estella, and a series of smaller villages that have been serving the Camino since the Middle Ages. Walking any section of this route, even a single day's stage, provides a perspective on the region that no other form of travel quite replicates.

The Bardenas Reales: Spain's Badlands

In the southeast of Navarra, the landscape changes entirely. The Bardenas Reales is a semi-desert natural park of eroded clay formations, flat-topped mesas, and carved gullies that looks more like the American Southwest than anything visitors expect to find in northern Spain. It is a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve and one of the most striking and unusual landscapes in the country.

The park is popular with cyclists and hikers who come for the surreal scenery and the quality of the light, which photographers travel specifically to capture. It is also used, due to its emptiness and dramatic terrain, as a filming location. Game of Thrones filmed scenes here. The contrast between the Bardenas and the green Pyrenean forests 80 kilometers to the north encapsulates the geographic range of Navarra in a single day's drive.

Food and Drink: Where the Basque Country Meets the Garden of Spain

Navarra is considered one of the best food regions in Spain, which in a country of this culinary seriousness is a significant claim. The combination of Pyrenean mountain produce, fertile river valley agriculture, and the proximity to Basque food culture creates a table that is both varied and exceptionally good.

The white asparagus of Navarra, grown in the Ebro valley, has its own Denomination of Origin and is considered the finest in Spain. The piquillo peppers of Lodosa, roasted red peppers preserved in their own juices, are another protected product of extraordinary quality. Artichokes from the Ribera, pochas, the local white bean stew, and trout from the mountain rivers cooked with ham in the traditional navarra style are the dishes that define the regional table.

The wines of Navarra are serious and underrated relative to their neighbor La Rioja. The Garnacha-based rosados, produced from old vine Grenache in the south of the region, are some of the best rosé wines in Spain. The reds from the Ribera Navarra subzone, built on Tempranillo and Cabernet Sauvignon, have earned genuine international recognition. Pacharán, a traditional sloe liqueur made in Navarra, is the digestif of the region and tastes unlike anything made elsewhere.

Practical Information for Travelers

Pamplona is reachable by train from Madrid in about 3 hours and from Barcelona in about 4. The city has a small airport with connections to major Spanish cities. For the Pyrenees, the Bardenas, and the smaller towns, a car is essential and the driving through the mountain passes is genuinely spectacular.

Spring and autumn are the best seasons for most of Navarra. The Pyrenees are accessible for hiking from June through September and for skiing from December through March. The Bardenas is best in spring and autumn when the light is best and the heat is manageable. San Fermín in July is its own category entirely: plan far in advance and accept that Pamplona in festival week is a completely different city from the one described in the rest of this guide.

Navarra is good value for money throughout, with the notable exception of San Fermín week in Pamplona, when accommodation prices reach extraordinary levels for the region. Outside of that week, the region is affordable, the restaurants are excellent at modest prices, and the wine is some of the best value in Spain.

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Navarra is one of seventeen autonomous communities that make up Spain, and each one has its own character, cuisine, landscape, and culture. At Travel-Casa Spain, we're working our way through all of them so you don't have to choose blind. From the Roman ruins of Extremadura and the wine country of La Rioja to the green coast of Cantabria and the castles of Castilla y León, we cover every corner of this country with firsthand knowledge and zero fluff.

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