Bardenas Reales
UNESCO Biosphere Reserve (Bardenas Reales, 2000), Some 350 Square Kilometres Of Semi Desert Badlands In Southern Navarre, Grazed Under Centuries Old Commons Rights And Partly Occupied By An Active Air Force Range · Arguedas, Navarre
Three hundred and fifty square kilometres of semi-desert badlands in the south of Navarre, which is not a landscape anyone associates with Spain and is the reason to go. The ground is clay, chalk and sandstone laid down in a lake basin and then cut apart by intermittent water and wind, leaving flat-topped mesas, ravines and isolated pinnacles with almost no vegetation holding any of it together. Castildetierra, a cone with a hard cap balanced on soft clay, is the one everybody photographs. It is a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve, it is grazed under commons rights that go back centuries, and it is startlingly empty. Two things to know before going. There is effectively no shade and no water, and in July and August that is a serious matter. And a substantial area is an ACTIVE AIR FORCE BOMBING RANGE, fenced and closed, which is not a curiosity but a hard boundary, and the visitor centre is the only reliable source for what is open on the day.
Bardenas Reales, Arguedas, Navarre, 31513, Spain
NO OPENING TIME HERE WAS CHECKED, and the reserve has none: it is open common land with public tracks and no gate, usable in daylight. What does change is ACCESS. A LARGE AREA IS AN ACTIVE MILITARY BOMBING RANGE and is permanently closed, and other tracks close without notice for military use, for weather and for conservation. THE VISITOR CENTRE near Arguedas holds the current status and keeps its own daytime hours. Confirm closures there before driving in.