After the desert we headed up to the Basque country, but over the border on the French side. K and I have already toured around the Basque country before on both sides of the border, but I wanted to revisit the French side as the architecture is so gorgeous.
As the weather was so lovely on this day we decided to take a walk around the headland at Hendaye, which is right beside the border.
It's not our first time here but the previous time was pre Moho, about 13 years ago! I didn't see too many butterflies (sadly) on this walk, but the two I captured below show the difference between a Wood White (Leptidea sinapis) on the left, and a Large White (Pieris brassicae) on the right (I think! Small and Large are hard to tell apart in photos). Wood Whites are far less common butterflies.
Chateau Abbadia, which contains an observatory, is open to the public. We didn't visit.
Below on the left is Clustered Bellflower (Campanula glomerata) and right, a Bee Orchid (Ophrys apifera), with my brother in the picture underneath. I was chuffed to find many Bee Orchids in the verges of the paths, especially as it was about a month later than I was seeing them in the south of the country.
Two Bee Orchids.
This is looking towards the town of Hendaye, with Spain in the distance.
Zooming in on this picture I can just see the little hotel where Keith and I stayed all those years ago. Now we have our own personal hotel! 😁
Rocks known as the Two Twins.
After this we visited some of the towns and villages which you will see in the next posts.
Here's a map showing where we came from (the desert) and the places we visited in the French Basque country. Hendaye is marked with a B.
Originally we had planned to visit Pamplona, but upon researching what to see and do there, it didn't sound very interesting! So we decided to go somewhere that my brother had found out about which although further away from the mountains, sounded fascinating.
It is an amazing desert landscape in Navarra, northern Spain, called Bardenas Reales, which became a UNESCO biosphere reserve in 2000. Below are some old rock dwellings which look very basic; my brother was the only person who ventured up there and said there was a load of rubbish inside some of the 'rooms' which is a shame. After this we set off on the circular route given to us by the Information Centre.
This map shows where we were over the last few days: Broto (red marker), Ainsa off to the right, then Jaca and then Bardenas Reales.
La Bardena Blanca, the most fragile part of the desert area is the middle section of the huge desert, which stretches for many kms in all directions, and part of it is in military use.
On the left, and in the photo below this one, is the rock formation known as Pisquerra, which would have been a bit more spectacular if we had been closer!
Our route was on a gravel road, which was good because it meant that people had to drive more slowly in this fragile ecosystem. In a motorhome you have to drive slower than a car due to things rattling so it took us a good few hours to do the circuit!
Of course we stopped a lot too to take photos and just look around. There are crop fields all through this desert area and I've seen photos of it looking green in the spring, but it was extremely arid when we were there. I guess there was enough moisture in the soil in spring for the wheat (or whatever) to grow, though I doubt the harvest would be very good in this kind of place.
I loved this pyramid although it doesn't seem to have a name.
Looking towards one of the most photographed rocks, called Castildetierra
The road ran right by Castildetierra, which has appeared in films though I don't know which ones, although Game of Thrones was filmed at Bardenas Reales - seems like many places in Spain that we have visited have been filmed for that show! (So much for the fragile ecosystem though, having hundreds of extras, the actors and all the film crew milling around ..... we at least kept to the roads.)
I just love this rock!
Our next destination was extremely green, in stark contrast to this landscape!
AINSA
We set off to a place that I had read was supposed to be really good for birds of prey, particularly different species of vulture. What did we see when we got there? Nothing!
So we headed to Ainsa, about 45 minutes from Broto, which we had already planned to see. We were lucky that there was a large parking area which included motorhomes as well as cars - you don't know how welcoming that is after so many car parks with height barriers or at best, motorhomes always having to park so much further away from tourist attractions than cars.
Coming from the car park you enter the medieval old town of Ainsa through Plaza Mayor, after passing by the remains of the old castle. There were several restaurants here and some market stalls. The old town is perched up on a hill above the rivers giving it good defences and views of potential enemy in olden times.
Lots of lovely old buildings everywhere.
View of one of the bridges from the old town. The town sits on the confluence of the River Ara and the River Cinca, after which the river turns into a reservoir.
There are only two main streets running through the old town and they are very narrow.
Santa Maria church: built mostly in the Romanesque style but as is the case with many old buildings, bits were added on over the centuries and often in other styles. This tower dates from the 11th century but there are some Gothic parts to the cloister added several hundred years later.
The fauna eco museum is located in the keep of the old castle. All that is left of the castle is mostly the walls and a few small buildings.
The eco musem was very interesting although not large. What really interested us was the bird of prey hospital where injured birds were taken to recuperate. Many are injured by overhead electric cables and can no longer fly - we came across this later in the holiday at an animal park for Pyrenean fauna where there were Griffon Vultures which were no longer able to fly due to the same reason.
The highlight for us was coming practically face to face with a Lammergeier (or Bearded Vulture) (Gypaetus barbatus). Unfortunately for photography, we were in a room underneath the birds' enclosures so viewing through a dirty glass ceiling, hence the reflections and poor quality. But it didn't matter whilst we were there because we will never see a bird like this in the wild anywhere close to us so it was a real experience! These are the bone crunchers of the vulture world.
We also enjoyed seeing this Eagle Owl (Bubo bubo) up close too. It doesn't have its ears up which gives it far more of a cute look. When their ears are pricked up on their heads they look quite fierce!
JACA
The following day we left Broto and headed to Jaca, a town that K and I had visited some years ago. The plan was to have a look around, have lunch and then visit the fort, which has a military miniatures museum, which sounded interesting.
Jaca was briefly the capital of Aragon in the 11th century, though these days the capital is Zaragoza.
San Pedro Cathedral, built between 1077 and 1130 and the first Romanesque cathedral built in Aragon. It has of course been added to and modified in later centuries, in different styles.
Jaca is quite a big modern town but there are still some lovely old bits.
After having lunch out we headed to the fort to have a look around, only to find it was closed for the long Spanish siesta and didn't open again until 4.30! We really didn't want to hang around for another two hours so we decided to give it a miss and drive on to a campsite for the night and chill out for the rest of the afternoon.
The previous time that K and I were there we walked all the way around the outside of the citadel and it is well known for having a colony of Rock Sparrows living there (which we saw at that time).
Our next destination was somewhere really quite different....
***********
I said I'd share my new orchid once it started flowering so here it is. I couldn't get a really sharp image of the teeny flowers as I took these photos indoors with not enough light. Orchids don't always like being moved so I wasn't going to take it outside to take the photos.
After Alquezar we headed further up into the Pyrenees to the small town of Broto in the Aragon region, where we stayed for three nights. Broto and the nearby village of Torla are two of the main places to stay for visiting the western side of the Ordesa and Monte Perdido National Park.
This was a view taken somewhere along the way.
This map of the National Park shows Torla, just outside of it, and Broto a few kms further south.
I took the picture during a very pleasant walk we took alongside the River Ara to the bridge which is where the red arrow is on the map, then walked back along the road. We were lucky with the weather as there was plenty of sunshine which makes such a difference when you are in the mountains. We were just inside the National Park here, but we didn't have the time to go further into it, and most of the walks inside the park are the kind for fit hikers to do, with refuges to stay in along the way. Too much going uphill for my liking anyway!
Along by the river I spotted this lovely Pyrenean Violet (Ramonda myconi), top left. They grow in shady rocky areas in this part of the Pyrenees. What I discovered about this plant is that it is a resurrection plant, i.e. a plant that can survive extreme drought and then come back to life months or even years later once they receive moisture.
The other plants which were in the open near the bridge are: right, St Bernard's Lily (Anthericum liliago) and bottom left, a pink Rockrose (Helianthemum nummularium).
The River Ara.
Top left: Rock Soapwort (Saponaria ocymoides).
Top right: Nailwort (Paronychia kapela), a creeping plant with tiny leaves and semi translucent white flowers that grows in sunny rocky places.
Bottom: Snapdragons of some sort (Antirrhinum sp.).
Another view from the bridge.
Left: Robust Marsh Orchid (Dactyorhiza elata) - according to PlantNet. It grows in very damp meadows, but also in seepages on roadside banks and verges - which was most probably the case here.
Right: Fragrant Orchid (Gymnadenia conopsea).
This is a Flax of some sort, although PlantNet says 84.5% it is Sticky Flax (Linum viscosum) but the leaves are much narrower. Apple ID also says it is Sticky Flax. It looks far more like Hairy Pink Flax (Linum pubescens) which has similar leaves to my one, yet that is supposed to be around the Eastern Mediterranean. i give up!
The church at Torla with the mountains behind.
Torla was prettier than Broto as it was older and more rustic. Also in the collage are a House Martin and her young in the nest, and the plant is Corsican Stonecrop (Sedum dasyphyllum) growing out of a wall.
I love seeing the different roofing materials! Adore those old stone roof tiles with the Sedums growing in amongst them.
More views in Torla.
Mountains from somewhere near Torla.
Same view from further away, from the bridge in Broto. Damn those annoying electric/phone cables which get in the way of lovely views so often.
The old and the new in Broto: the Romanesque bridge next to a modern one.
Close to the village there is a short walk to a waterfall, the Cascada del Sorrosal. The sun was annoyingly in the way for taking shots of this 120m high waterfall.
Looking back in the other direction from the waterfall. I loved the rock strata that look like steps. Mountain water is always so clear, apart from after heavy rain.
The next post is where we went on day two of our stay in Broto.
