Nazar

The church bell strikes eleven and the only other sound is a tractor starting up somewhere below the houses. At 740 metres above sea level, Nazar's morning air carries the resinous scent of beech and oak drifting down from the Sierra de Urbasa. You notice it immediately if you've driven up from the wine flats of the Ebro an hour earlier.

Thirty-six souls live here year-round, enough to keep the bar open at weekends and the church bell ringing, but not enough to stop the village feeling half-asleep. That's the point. Most visitors arrive with walking boots in the boot and a bottle of Rioja bought en route, stay two or three nights in one of the stone cottages that peer over the ridge, and measure time by the shift of light across the valley rather than by any schedule.

Stone, Tile and Silence

A slow circuit of the village takes twenty minutes if you dawdle. The houses are low, built from local rubble stone the colour of weathered barley, with heavy timber balconies that throw afternoon shade across doorways wide enough for a mule. Nothing is prettified; paint flakes, geraniums grow in olive-oil tins, and the occasional satellite dish reminds you which century you're in. Photographers usually stop at the corner by the old washing trough where the track dips suddenly towards the cereal fields – the angle gives you terracotta roofs stacked like loose change against the green wall of the sierra.

The Iglesia de San Pedro squats at the highest point, its squat tower more fortification than ornament. Inside it smells of candle wax and damp stone; the wooden pews are polished smooth by generations of the same families. Sunday mass is at eleven thirty, sung in a Spanish thick with Basque vowels. Visitors are welcome but the priest doesn't linger; by midday he's back down the mountain to Estella-Lizarra and the church door is bolted until next week.

Footpaths and Forecasts

Trailheads begin where the tarmac ends. A fingerpost marked "Bosque de Nazar" points you into beech woods where the temperature drops five degrees within a hundred metres. The paths are not way-marked like a Lake District stroll; red-and-white GR paint flashes appear sporadically, then vanish. Download the track before you leave home – phone signal dies the moment you duck under the canopy. In May the forest floor is a carpet of bluebells that would make a Surrey gardener weep; by mid-October the same ground crunches with copper leaves and the air smells of mushrooms and woodsmoke.

Walkers who set off at nine can be on the Urbasa ridge by eleven, looking west across the Rioja Alavesa vineyards whose rows look like contour lines from that height. The round trip is 12 km with 500 m of ascent – strenuous but doable in approach shoes unless the previous night's rain has turned the clay to grease. Winter brings a different game: snow can block the minor road from Ventosa for days and the ayuntamiento doesn't rush out the plough. If you're booking a January escape, pack chains and a sense of humour.

What You'll Eat and Where You'll Buy It

There is no shop in Nazar. The last grocer shut when the proprietor retired in 2018; locals drive to Estella on Friday morning and fill the boot. Tourists usually self-cater. The Sunday market in nearby Viana – twenty minutes down the NA-134 – sells chalky Navarre sheep's cheese, bunches of chard still wearing their field soil, and fat white asparagus that costs half what it does in Borough Market. Pick up a bottle of young red Garnacha; it costs about six euros and tastes like strawberries with pepper.

For eating out you have two choices. The bar at the entrance to the village does coffee and toasted baguette with tomato and olive oil for €2.50, but it keeps eccentric hours: open Saturday lunchtime, Sunday morning, and whenever Antonio feels like it. Otherwise you drive ten minutes to Luquin where Casa Coscojuelas serves a chuletón for two that arrives on its own mini grill, the bone blackened and the meat still bleeding. Vegetarians get menestra – a gentle stew of peas, artichoke and asparagus that won't frighten anyone raised on cauliflower cheese.

When the Village Wakes Up

Fiestas begin on the last weekend of June with a single firework at midday Saturday and a mass that spills out of the church door. What follows is less organised spectacle than extended family barbecue: tables dragged into the square, crates of Estrella Galicia, and children darting between scooters until long after the British bedtime. Outsiders are handed a plate and a glass without ceremony; payment is simply to join in the singing later, even if you only manage the chorus. By Monday morning the square has been hosed down and the village slips back into its weekday quiet.

British visitors who time it right talk about the fiesta for months afterwards. Those who arrive the following weekend sometimes wonder where everyone has gone – the answer is Pamplona, or San Sebastián, or simply the fields.

Getting Here, Staying Here

Fly to Bilbao or the tiny Logroño-Agoncillo airport; either way you need wheels. From Bilbao the AP-68 follows the Ebro before turning north on the A-12 towards Estella; exit at Ventosa and climb 9 km of switchback. The road is narrower than a British B-road but perfectly paved – nevertheless the last stretch takes longer than the sat-nav promises, especially if you meet a combine harvester coming the other way.

Accommodation is exclusively self-catering cottages restored with exposed beams, wood-burning stoves and Wi-Fi that works most of the time. Prices cluster around €110 per night for a two-bedroom house, with a three-night minimum outside July-August. Bring slippers: stone floors are beautiful but cold before the fire catches each morning. Nights are cool even in July; by November you might wake to frost feathering the inside of the windows.

The Honest Verdict

Nazar will not keep a hectic sightseer busy. If you need museums, gift shops or a choice of restaurants, stay in Estella and drive up for the afternoon. What the village offers instead is altitude without effort – you can watch weather systems roll along the valley while still within earshot of the kettle – and a front-row seat on woodland that changes colour more reliably than a New England postcard. Come with a pair of decent boots, a fridge stocked in Viana, and the British ability to enjoy doing very little for quite a long time. The sierra will handle the rest.