Lana

The church bell strikes eleven and the sound drifts downhill, past stone walls thick enough to seat a row of grandfathers, across a lane barely two metres wide, and into the beech wood that begins where the last cottage ends. In Lana, altitude is not a number on a road sign; it is the moment you open the car door and the air carries resin instead of diesel, and the temperature drops three degrees before you have found your map.

At 650 m above the wine-growing floodplain of the Río Ega, the village sits on the southern lip of the Sierra de Urbasa. The difference is immediate. Oaks that would be stunted on the surrounding wheat hills grow tall enough to shade a three-storey house. Ferns replace sun-baked thyme on the verges. Even in July you will see locals walk to the bread van in jumpers, sleeves pulled down against a breeze that has crossed forty kilometres of beech canopy without touching a road.

Stone, Straight Up

No one arrives here by accident. From Pamplona you leave the A-12 at Estella, then wriggle upwards for 25 km on the NA-718, a lane that narrows with every junction. The last approach is a single-track loop: stone walls on one side, a drop into oak scrub on the other. Coaches do not attempt it; in winter the Guardia Civil sometimes close it when snow lines the ditches. That filter keeps the village at its present 155 souls and prevents the main street from becoming a car park.

Park where the tarmac widens by the recycled-glass bin and walk. The village is five minutes end to end, but the gradients are honest. Houses rise in terraces, roofs almost touching the street above. Granite and slate dominate; only the occasional lintel, carved with a date or a coat of arms, softens the grey. Drainpipes are recent additions, fitted reluctantly and painted the same colour as the stone so they disappear. Electricity cables run underground; at night the only glow comes from windows and the single streetlamp outside the frontón.

The fifteenth-century church of San Vicente Mártir squats at the highest point, tower short and square, as if pressed down by the weight of the plateau behind it. Walk round it clockwise and you can read the building like a geological survey: Romanesque base, Gothic arches patched with brick, a Baroque bell-stage added after a storm in 1887. The north wall still carries scars from a fire set during the Carlist Wars; the stone is redder there, flaked like burnt toast. The door is usually open; inside, the air smells of wax and damp stone, the temperature steady whatever the weather outside.

Paths that Start at Back Doors

From the church porch a lane continues as a farm track and within two hundred metres becomes a forest ride. No ticket office, no interpretation board—just a wooden post with a faded yellow stripe. This is the entrance to the Urbasa beech wood, 11,000 ha of public land that stretches north until it drops spectacularly into the valley of the Río Urederra. The path is wide enough for a tractor collecting logs; after rain it is a ribbon of mud polished by tractor tyres. Boots are sensible, but the gradient is gentle enough for trainers if you do not mind slipping.

Thirty minutes’ walk brings you to the Fuente de Lana, a stone trough fed by a pipe driven into the hillside. The water is cold enough to numb a hand in May; locals fill five-litre jerrycans and carry them back to village houses that have plumbing but still prefer the taste of the mountain. Above the trough the track splits. Left climbs gently to the Puerto de Lana (1,050 m), a grassy saddle where red kites circle most afternoons. Right follows a firebreak along the ridge; in late October the beech floor is a copper carpet and the air smells of leaf mould and mushrooms.

When the Leaves Fall, the Rules Change

Autumn is mushroom season and the village doubles in population at weekends. Cars with Bilbao number plates appear before dawn; walkers emerge wearing wicker baskets and carrying the indispensable pañuelo—a coloured cloth that identifies the picker as local, visitor, or commercial collector. The rules are simple and strictly enforced: no raking the forest floor, no collecting more than two kilos per person, no buttons under five centimetres across. The Forest Service patrols in green pickups; fines start at €300 and are handed out on the spot. Even so, the woods feel busy. If you want silence, come on a Tuesday in March.

Winter brings a different hush. Snow is intermittent but fog is guaranteed; the village can sit inside a cloud for three days while the valley below remains in sunshine. Heating is mostly wood-burning stoves, fed with beech cut under licence. Supplies are stacked in every courtyard, cut to fifty-centimetre lengths and seasoned for two years. When the north wind blows, the smell of resin drifts through the streets like incense.

Beds and Breakfasts, but No Shop

There is no hotel in Lana, only three village houses restored as self-catering cottages. Casa Landa, the largest, sleeps six and has under-floor heating powered by a ground-source pump—welcome after a day when the thermometer freezes. Expect to pay €120–€140 a night for two bedrooms, kitchen, and a terrace that looks across the valley to the limestone bluffs of Andía. Breakfast provisions can be ordered from the owner in Estella and left in the fridge; the nearest supermercado is a twenty-minute drive back down the hill.

If you prefer company, drive another four kilometres to Viloria, where Casa Rural Pakienea offers proper B&B service. The owner, María, speaks fluent English picked up while nursing in Manchester and will explain the difference between trompetas de la muerte and níscalos over coffee strong enough to stain the cup. Evening meals are available if you book before noon; the menu might be river trout with piquillo peppers or a vegetarian menestra of cardoons and walnuts, depending on what the garden produces.

What to Bring, What to Leave

Mobile coverage is patchy. Vodafone picks up one bar on the church steps; elsewhere you will rely on Wi-Fi from the cottage. Bring cash—neither the bread van nor the mushroom buyer from Sangüesa takes cards. Pack a fleece even in August; night temperatures can drop to 10 °C when the wind swings north. Do not bring a mountain bike expecting flowing single-track: the tracks are tractor-rutted and shared with cows whose right of way is absolute.

Leave the drone at home. The silence is part of the place; the council has banned unsolicited buzzing after a visitor tried to film Sunday mass from the belfry. Photographers are welcome, but the best shots arrive by waiting: the moment fog lifts to reveal the valley, or when the bread van’s engine note echoes off stone and sends pigeons clattering from the eaves.

An Honest Exit

Lana will not keep you busy from dawn to dusk. You can walk every lane, forest track, and church aisle before lunch and still have time for a siesta. What the village offers instead is a calibration point: a place where the altitude adjusts your lungs, the stone adjusts your stride, and the quiet resets the volume of your thoughts. Come for two nights, stay for three, and you will notice the difference on the motorway back to Pamplona when the traffic roar returns like a radio switched on too loud.