Erro

At 668 m above sea level, Erro sits low for a Pyrenean village, yet the air still thins the lungs of walkers arriving from the Atlantic coast. They come off the Camino Francés expecting another hamlet with vending-machine pilgrim menus and instead find a working valley where the loudest sound is often a tractor reversing into a stone barn. The church bell tolls the hour, then silence settles again, broken only by the Erro stream pushing towards the Arga.

The village—really a scatter of stone nuclei linked by lanes barely wide enough for a Citroën Berlingo—stretches along a shelf of pasture and oak. Terraces of red-roofed houses step down to vegetable plots protected by low dry-stone walls. No souvenir stalls, no boutique hotels, just one bar-restaurant, Hostal Rural Haizea, whose front terrace doubles as the local newsroom. Order a caña before seven and it costs €1.50; stay for dinner and the set menu is still under €15, roast chicken crisped in an oven you can see from the dining room.

Walking without the brochure

Erro is not a destination for tick-box sightseeing. The parish churches at Sorlanda, Zolina and Erro itself are modest, thick-walled affairs built with the same grey schist as the houses. Their bell towers once warned of flooding; now they serve as way-markers on a network of farm tracks that stitch the valley together. A morning loop from the albergue to the oak grove above Zolina takes forty minutes, gains 150 m, and delivers a view straight down the valley to the beech woods of Bertiz. In April the understorey is white with wild garlic; by late October the same path smells of mushrooms and wet leaf-litter.

The routes are not grand treks—think of them as elongated garden walks with altitude. Way-finding is refreshingly low-tech: yellow arrows painted on boundary stones, plus the occasional tin sign nailed to a walnut tree. Mobile signal vanishes within 200 m of the road, so download an offline map before you set out. If the clouds stack up on the western ridge, turn back; the track turns to slick clay within minutes and there is no shuttle bus to rescue you.

Seasons that change the locks

Winter arrives early. The first snow can dust the pass above Ezcaurre by mid-November, and the regional bus from Pamplona stops running when the gradient hits ten per cent. Locals swap small cars for 4x4s, chains rattling like medieval weaponry. From December to March the valley feels half-asleep: the shop opens only on Tuesday and Friday, and the restaurant will close if no pilgrims reserve before 19:00. Spring, by contrast, is frantic. Calves appear in the meadows, orchards burst into white blossom, and the sound of strimmers replaces church bells as farmers tidy verges for the coming transhumance.

Summer brings thick, insect-heavy evenings. Daytime temperatures reach 32 °C in the sun, yet the hay-barns stay cool enough to store cheese. British visitors driving down from Biarritz (1 h 45 min) often arrive expecting alpine freshness and instead find a heat that lingers until well past ten o’clock. The solution is altitude: a twenty-minute drive up the NA-1510 to the Irati beech forest puts you 600 m higher and ten degrees cooler. Pack a fleece whatever the calendar says; Atlantic weather systems can flip a blue day into sideways rain before you’ve finished your coffee.

What you’ll eat—and what you won’t

Forget tasting menus. Evening choices are the Haizea dining room or your own backpack contents. The set meal usually runs: garden-lettuce salad, roast chicken with hand-cut chips, a slab of cuajada (milk curd with honey). Vegetarians get escalivada—roasted aubergine and peppers—though you must ask when you book; supplies are bought daily in Pamplona. The local cider, bottled in Lekunberri, is lighter than the acidic Asturian stuff and arrives in 33 cl bottles meant for one. If you need gluten-free bread, bring it; the village shop stocks sliced white or nothing.

Breakfast is simpler still. The albergue will sell you instant coffee and a baguette for €2, but don’t wait past eight-thirty—the owner also drives the school taxi. Stock up on fruit and nuts before you arrive; the last reliable supermarket is the Eroski in Zubiri, 18 km back down the Camino.

Beds, buses and the cash problem

Accommodation divides cleanly between passing foot-traffic and motorists. Hostal Rural Haizea has twelve single beds, no bunks, radiators that actually work and a drying loft for wet boots. Half-board is €38; cash only. Walkers who phone ahead can usually bag a bed even in shoulder season—foreign tourists rarely make it this far off the guidebook itinerary. Drivers after more comfort head six kilometres north to Cabañas Agotzenea, a cluster of pine cabins with picture windows overlooking the valley and a wood-fired hot-tub that costs €15 an hour to heat.

Public transport is skeletal. ALSA runs a Pamplona–Baztan bus that pauses at the Erro turn-off on weekdays at 08:10, 13:40 and 18:15. Miss the last and a taxi from Pamplona costs €60. There is no ATM; the nearest cash machine stands outside a petrol station in Larrasoaña, 14 km south. Cards are accepted nowhere in the village, and the bar will not run tabs. Bring notes smaller than €50—change is precious.

The things that catch you out

Guidebooks call Erro “tiny”; they don’t explain that the mobile medical clinic visits only on Thursdays, or that the shopkeeper keeps siesta hours she refuses to publish online. Plan a rest day here and you may find yourself wandering the lanes at dusk with nothing open but a vending machine full of tinned tuna. Wi-Fi reaches the bar terrace, but bandwidth dies when three pilgrims upload photos at once. Rainwater gullies cut across the lanes: low-slung hire cars scrape bottom more often than their drivers care to admit.

Yet the same stripped-back quality is what persuades many walkers to stay an extra night. With no attractions to rush towards, time loosens. You notice how the sun catches the quartz veins in the church wall, or how a farmer calls each of his twenty cows by name at milking. The valley keeps its own rhythm; visitors simply fall in step, or they leave after breakfast.

Leaving the valley

If you’re continuing west, the Camino climbs 300 m through holm oak to the watershed above Zubiri. Knees permitting, the view back towards Erro shows the village as a narrow stripe of terracotta between forest and pasture, smoke rising from a single chimney. Turn around twice and it’s gone, replaced by the next ridge and the promise of coffee in Pamplona an hour down the road. Drive away on the NA-121 and the valley mouth closes behind you like a gate. Whether that feels like escape or loss depends on how much cash you remembered to withdraw—and whether you booked dinner before you left.