The Real Bardenas, one of the areas but singular of Navarrese, they welcome us with their capricious forms and aspect desértico.

This is a great magic and mysterious space, located in the one southeast of Navarrese that surprisingly doesn't belong to any municipality.

The Real Bardenas is an arid territory and semidesértico with a maximum longitude of north to south of 45 kilometers and a maxim of this to west of 24 kilometers. In total 45.000 hectares located in the west of the Riverside of Navarrese with the qualification of natural park and he/she reserves of the biosphere.

It is a vast extension of lands among municipalities whose ownership doesn't relapse in any local entity and that the Navarrese legislation it defines as local entity and corporation of traditional character. The Bardena it limits with the Navarrese municipalities of Carcastillo, Santacara, Mélida, Murillo of the Cuende, Caparroso, Villafranca, Cadreita, Valtierra, Arguedas, Tudela, Cabanillas, Fustiñana and Buñuel; as well as with the Aragonese municipalities of Sádaba, Tauste and Ejea of the Gentlemen.

The life of the cabanilleros, through the uses traditional (it hunts, firewood, shepherding, cultivation...) and of the most current (senderismo, walks in bicycle...), it has been and it is together to that of this spectacular landscape that surprises for the forms so capricious, result of the intense erosive activity, creating a panorama that some have qualified as "the American far-West within reach of anyone." To check it there is that to go into for the Bardena Blanca, where we will be able to observe summits like the "Castildetierra" or the "Brother", and ravines like the Big ravine or elevations of great beauty like the Pisquerra.

Several clearly differentiated areas exist:

• The area more to the north he/she is the great well-known plateau as "The Plane."
• In the central part it is the Bardena Blanca, formed by a great one depression. Denominated this way by the whitish color of the floor due to those blooming of salt (saltpeter). He/she extends from the terms of Pisquerra and of the Preserve of Eguaras until the Plane of the Bardenas. It is characterized for big plains and deep ravines with summits or hills in ways unforeseeable that the erosion carves day by day.
• The most southern of all, the Quarter note is located, with more vegetation, with reliefs almost horizontal tabulares and crossed by the Barrando of Tudela.

They existed in the Bardenas Real several castles, at the moment only they are some ruins; Castle of Peñaflor or The Preserve of Eguaras.

Three hermitages exist; Sancho Embraces, The Virgin of the Yoke, Sacred Margarita.

Three Natural Reservations have been declared by their high value ecological: The Natural reservation of the Preserve of Eguaras, the reservation of the Corner of the one Bu, Reserves of Fallen of the Quarter note.

The climate, very extreme, is characterized by the winters very colds, whipped by the wind of the north (well-known as North wind) and the summers hot, with temperatures that fluctuate from the 45ºC in summer, at the 5ºC below zero in winter. Among their vegetation esteparia they highlight the esparto, those ontinares, the rosemary and the thyme, being able to be in some areas remains of forests of pine carrasco and alepo.

The fauna

The fauna, adapted to the difficult life of the Bardenas, is composed by lizards ocelados (gardachos), bastard snakes, predators (kites, sparrow hawks, alcotanes and eagles), foxes, boars, mountain cat, polecat, weasels, rabbits, hares and partridges. They can also be different birds esteparias today in extinction danger like bargains, alcaravanes, sisón, ortegas, etc.

You reserve Natural
In the Real Bardenas three Natural Reservations have been declared with their high one ecological value:

• The Natural Reservation of the Preserve of Eguaras.
• The Reservation Corner of Blu, among the limit between the Blanca and the Quarter note.
• The Reservation of Fallen of the Quarter note, second in extension of Navarrese.

1. To avoid the central hours of the day, mainly in those months of July and August, for the high temperatures that can overcome those 45 ºC.

2. In summer to go provided of fresh and enough water, glasses of sun, cap and protection creams.

3. To avoid the visits in days of since rain the roads of clay becomes in dangerous and glidants hints in those that it will block with all security.

4. Not to consent to the defined area and properly signalled as Polygon of Shot.

5. To follow the indications and the landmarks that point out those roads, not to traffic outside of the signal ones and not to carry out signalings.

To return to the menu

The Real Bardenas is a solitary territory located in the one south of Navarrese that is very similar for their characteristic paisajísticas to the one typical place desértico that usually appears in the television documentaries, of fact great part of the advertising spots of automobiles that you see for television is rotated in these places. Accessible and affordable to any technical level, the Bardenas is the ideal scenario to live an experience only and to share it with your friends along a long weekend, of a festival bridge or of some vacations.

The first time that you arrives to the Bardenas he/she impresses to know that we are before a territory of 420 square kilometers of extension in the one that you grieve human activity it exists and that however it is traveled for hundred of kilometers of hints, roads, cattle narrow canyons and ravines.

Located in a border area of diverse regions: Navarrese, Aragon, Rioja and Castile, the Bardenas is a geographical crossroad since from their heights we will be able to dominate without forcing the view territories so disparate as the Prepirineo, the Pirineo, the Valley of the Ebro and summits of the system Iberian as the omnipresent Moncayo or the Sierra of the Demand.

To the margin of the topics, it doesn't exist more remedy than to define the Bardenas like an authentic natural desert and human originated to parts equal for the concurrence of elements biogeográficos and of the own activity historical of the man.

The special personality of this Navarrese territory is very anchored in the history, in short from the century IX when the king Sancho it rewarded with the use and enjoyment from this territory of real property to those inhabitants of the riverside tudelana and to those of the valley of Roncal and of Salazar, you it was from a regal recognition to the help received in the reconquest of Tudela, for that time a strength in Muslim hands. From then on, these privileges one has come maintaining and the shepherds pirenaicos use still the territories of the Bardenas so that their sheep spend far the winter of the colds and the snow of the Pirineo in the Navarrese north.

In spite of their solitary character, the Bardenas is tremendously accessible mainly if we think that to so single 15 kilometers you he/she finds the town of Tudela one of the main Navarrese cities. This accessibility is due to the presence of the shot polygon of the I exercise of the one Spanish air and of the NATO and to the hints and roads used by the shepherds, the two only activities that are developed in a permanent way in the area.

The hints are accessible to any vehicle type and to consequence of this, is a certain traffic of vehicles 4x4 many of those which are of French origin. The tourist buses are even able to arrive to places like the Castill of Earth. This accessibility has its advantages since it allows - if you consent in car - the selection of short itineraries doing without of the long connections for asphalt. As curiosity, you can descend for the popular trialera of the Step of the Deer - a magic and only place in Spain - and to the thirty minutes to take an ice cream in a terrace of Tudela.

In spite of having certain masificación of visitors in determined moments and places, a great respect exists to the use norms and enjoy this natural place. In the Bardenas to the margin of the hints but converged, you can feel the solitude like in few places. An evening from the summit of the Rayon - a mountain of accessible earth in bike - it is an experience outside of the common thing.

He/she got us the attention the total absence of remains of garbage and other habitual degradation samples in the places masificados for the one tourism. We imagine that in this positive fact he/she has their part of responsibility the Navarrese Government that has also signalled the roads and installed useful informative panels.

Shot polygon: The first and fundamental is to respect the indications that they impede the access to the field of shot of the army of the air. There is not possibility of confusion since the perimeter of the polygon is perfectly signalled. It is the interior area of the circular hint that surrounds the central depression of the Bardena Blanca. The working days we will be livened up for the noisy step of the hunts of the army in flight rasante.

It dilutes: more than ever we insist in the necessity of taking water enough during the route. Alone there is water in the towns.

Climatology: In our days of having traveled by the Bardenas live extreme situations from the climatic point of view. The heat is suffocating from June to September. In summer you can circulate at first hour of the tomorrow or along the twilight that you/they are also the best moments for to make pictures. It is fundamental to protect the skin with solar cream and to take glasses of sun. There are two added elements to keep in mind, the wind that due to the land configuration blows with virulence and the rain that it deserves a separate chapter. In spite of the shortage of precipitations, before the threat of rain will conclude the route immediately since the presence of loamy materials can leave our bikes literally "nailed" in the one I sweep with the considerable risk of fallen, blockade of pedals, chains... Many of the routes lapse for the bottom of ravines that with unusual speed fills with water.

The bicycles: To revise the mechanics of the bikes detailedly with special incidence in two aspects: grease and replacements for jabs.

Cartography: The recommended cartography is: maps of the Service Geographical of the Army, to scale 1:50.000.