Tudela

The Tuesday market smells of damp earth and cardamom. At 09:00 sharp, stallholders in the Mercado de Abastos are still arranging bunches of white asparagus so fat they look like ivory batons. By 11:00 the same spears will be gone—snapped up by local grandmothers who guard their vegetable patches like military secrets. This is Tudela, a workaday city of 38,000 that behaves more like a village with traffic lights, parked midway between Zaragoza and Pamplona on the banks of the Ebro.

A Border City Without a Border

The cathedral tower pokes above the rooftops exactly as it did in 1165, when Benjamin of Tudela—Jewish traveller, proto-Blogger—left for a 13-year journey that took him to Baghdad. His house is long gone, but the narrow lanes of the Judería still zig-zag behind the main square, narrow enough that you can touch both walls at once. Pick up the free walking leaflet from the tiny tourist office on Calle Portal; the English is shaky but the map is honest and the route keeps you out of the drabber 1970s blocks that ring the old centre.

Inside Santa María la Mayor the ticket kiosk asks for €3. For that you get Romanesque cloisters where storks nest on the guttering, and a facsimile of the Kennicot Bible whose gold leaf catches the overhead spots like a Tudor manuscript. Photography is allowed, but silence is enforced by a retired schoolteacher in a hi-vis vest who recognises English accents and will whisper “mind the step” at every doorway.

Vegetables First, Meat Second

Lunch starts at 14:00; turn up earlier and you’ll share the dining room with the cleaner’s radio. Tudela’s kitchen revolves around the huerta, the irrigated plain that starts at the city walls. Order menestra de verduras and you receive a shallow bowl of artichoke hearts, peas and red pepper, the flavours so bright it could pass for Provence. Pochas—white haricot beans stewed with bay and a single chorizo coin—are creamier than any cannellini you’ll find in Waitrose. Even the house wine, a Navarra rosado served chilled, tastes of strawberries that have remembered their manners.

The set-menu spots around Plaza de los Fueros charge €12–15 for three courses; terraces are pleasant until the smokers arrive en masse. If you prefer smoke-free air, head to the modern cafés on Avenida de Zaragoza where local office workers bolt bocadillos of chistorra sausage in 12 minutes flat.

Parking, Pedalling and the Half-Hour Rule

Tudela is flat, compact and deliberately unintimidating. Park for free on Avenida de Zaragoza after 14:00 on Saturday and all day Sunday; during the week the underground car park beneath the bullring costs €1.20 an hour and almost always has spaces. From there every sight is within a ten-minute stroll, so you can dump the car keys and forget them.

Bikes are more useful for the surrounding vegetable plots than for the city itself. The tourist office lends city bikes free for two hours (passport required); cycle 3 km south along the Ebro path and you’ll pass allotments guarded by scarecrows wearing Real Madrid shirts. Keep pedalling another 12 km and the irrigation channels stop dead at the edge of the Bardenas Reales, a 42,000-hectare semi-desert where the soil turns the colour of Worcestershire sauce.

Desert on the Doorstep

The transition from cabbage rows to lunar badlands takes under 20 minutes by car. Entry is free but you’ll need wheels: hire a 4×4 in Tudela (€90 half-day) or join a guided minibus (€25 pp) that leaves at 16:00 when the light flattens the cliffs and the Egyptian vultures come out to therm. Castildetierra, a sandstone pillar that looks like a broken tooth, appears in every Spanish car advert yet the place still feels empty; on weekdays you can stand on the rim and hear only wind and the distant growl of an Army helicopter from the training zone next door.

Cyclists should stick to the signposted 30 km loop; the surface is hard-pack but bring two bottles—there’s no shade and summer temperatures flirt with 38 °C. If the wind is above 30 km/h the park closes; check @bardenasreales on Twitter before setting out, and don’t trust Google Maps shortcuts that turn into axle-deep clay after rain.

When to Come, When to Dodge

April and late-September are the sweet spots: days hover round 22 °C, the artichokes are in season and hotel prices stay sane. July’s vegetable fiestas sound tempting but daytime heat can hit 36 °C; the streets empty between 14:00 and 18:00 while even the storks pant on their nests. Mid-winter is quieter, inexpensive and often bright, though the cierzo wind can whistle up the Ebro at 60 km/h—bring a scarf and expect dust in your contact lenses.

The week of Santa Ana (end July) turns the city into a karaoke version of Pamplona: bull runs at 07:00, brass bands at 02:00, and hotel rates that triple. Book early or stay in nearby Tarazona and drive in for the fireworks.

Beds, Bogs and Brevity

British visitors rarely stay more than one night, and Tudela is fine with that. The Bed4U on the ring road delivers clean, anonymous rooms for €55 including underground parking; reception will borrow an iron from the annex if you ask nicely. In the old town, the three-star Hotel Delta is pricier (€80) but occupies a 19th-century chemist’s shop with original ceiling mouldings and a lift wide enough for a bicycle.

Check-out is normally 12:00, which gives you time for coffee and a napolitana de crema in the art-deco café on Plaza de los Fueros. By 13:00 you’ll have seen the cathedral, the cloisters, the Jewish quarter and the riverbank. Fill a tote bag with tinned white asparagus from the market, point the car towards Logroño and you’ll be drinking Rioja by 15:00—leaving Tudela to its vegetables, its storks and its Tuesday-morning secrets.