Navarra's beauty and variety creates some problems: first deciding what part of this lovely province to explore and then what hikes to do!!
To narrow things down a bit we've decided to suggest the eastern valleys for this trip - this is where the Pyrenees first reach 2,000 meters / 6,500 ft altitude, alternating rounded, grassy slopes with crags and deep gorges. Stone villages nestle in the valleys, an immense beech forest straddles the border between Spain and France and several important traditional routes cross the area -- the Road of St. James, two trans-Pyrenee walking routes and two livestock routes down from the summer grazing land in the Pyrenees to the winter pastures in the southern flatlands.
So what will it be? A crest hike with megalithic burial dolmens? A valley hike through the forest? A bit of the Road of St. James, maybe the lesser-known southern part with the Templars' "Hundred-Door" chapel or the monastery with a Rip Van Winkle legend? Something in the weird and rocky karst area along the French border, or a bit of a smugglers' route? All that without mentioning the lovely valley shown here, where walking down is more fun than walking up.....
