Araotz YECTOYD and a Santander Seaside Send-off at La Arnia
Araotz is one of the most significant climbing areas in the Basque Country, with over 400 routes either side of a steep sided valley, near the town of OƱati (best […]
Category Archives: Navarra and Basque Country
Dos Hermanas – Balcon de los Buitres
Dos Hermanas, or The Two Sisters, are a pair of impressive limestone towers guarding a pass near the town of Irurtzun. Somewhat incongruously they’ve now squeezed the A15 autopista between […]
Etxauri at last!
Wending our way westwards towards Santander and our ferry home, we crossed into Navarra – you know you’ve arrived in the Basque speaking part of Spain because all the place […]
Santa Barbara
Santa Barbara is a small crag a few miles south of San Sebastian – not a destination venue, but a super-convenient spot nonetheless. Think Witches Quarry or Hartington if you […]
Atxarte – Urkiola Natural Park
Here’s another destination crag that you’ve probably never heard of. Just south of Bilbao, in the Basque Country / Pais Vasco is the Urkiola Natural Park, made up of the […]
Etxauri recce and San Fausto saves the day
Etxauri IS the premier crag in Navarra, and we’d saved it for a fitting finale as our last day’s cragging on this trip. Imagine our disappointment as we woke to […]
Penartea – heading into Navarra
There’s a lot of rock in Navarra, just like the rest of Spain, and a fair bit of climbing concentrated around Pamplona. We’ve been keeping an eye on the weather […]
Homeward bound – but not until a brush with an unexploded WW2 bomb
Okay – sounds more dramatic than it was. Our ferry was delayed by the discovery of a bomb in Portsmouth Harbour, but we were 24hrs and a thousand miles away […]
Ysios – a brief cultural / boozing interlude
āWith a few hours drive ahead of us, and a fair collection of aches and pains, we decided on a brief excursion into tourist territory, rather than snatching a token […]
Navarra and a trip to San Fausto
āAfter our whistle stop tour of the best couple of crags in La Rioja we passed through Navarra and the city of Pamplona on our way to our rendezvous with […]
Anguilano
āThe other crag recommended in La Rioja is Anguilano. Like Clavio, this dominates the eponymous village, but rather than a conglomerate muffin it offers a huge swathe of clean-cut slab […]
Into Rioja – Climbing at Clavio
āHeading east, we drop over the tail end of the Cantabrian range and stop briefly in the southern Basque country, or Pais Vasques. Everything changes, from landscape to architecture, and […]
Gernika
The heart of Basque country is Gernika (or Guernica). The spiritual home, where meetings of the Nation’s leadership were traditionally held beneath an ancient tree, was made famous as the […]
Basque country
Heading for Santander and we travel through Basque Country. It really feels like a different country – different architecture, different landscape and different language – almost slavic in look and […]
Santa Linya
Heading north now, towards Bilbao and a ferry crossings on Thursday. Santa Linya provides an ideal stopping off point – easy overnight parking, some great routes we didn’t have time […]
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