San Martín de Unx

The bells ring at seven, and the only other sound is your own breathing as you climb the Calle de la Iglesia. At 650 m above the cereal plains of central Navarra, San Martín de Unx feels higher than it looks on the map; the air is thinner, the sun sharper, and every cobble seems angled for maximum calf burn. Park at the lower plaça, where the tarmac ends and the medieval ramp begins—trying to drive further is the quickest way to meet a wall, a dog, and a neighbour who will explain, politely but firmly, that the village was laid out eight centuries before the invention of the SUV.

A Church That Doubled as a Watchtower

The Iglesia de San Martín de Tours squats at the summit like a stone lighthouse. Twelfth-century Romanesque at its core, thickened in the fifteenth with defensive additions, it served as both place of worship and refuge when raiders rode up from the southern deserts. Climb the narrow spiral (€2 donation, weekends only; weekday visits must be pre-booked through the ayuntamiento) and you emerge onto a roof terrace with 360-degree views: patchwork vineyards to the north, wind turbines faint on the horizon, and the Pyrenees floating white on clear spring mornings.

Inside, Baroque gilt competes with surviving Romanesque stonework. The crypt, unlocked on request, is barely six paces wide but stays a constant 14 °C—welcome relief after the climb. A British visitor last May noted having the entire building to herself on a Monday; the custodian apologised for “the lack of atmosphere” before switching on a single bulb that made the stone glow gold.

Uphill Streets, Down-to-Earth Food

The casco histórico is a five-minute walk only if you take the straightest line; allow twenty if you pause to read masons’ marks, peer into the old bread oven on Calle Mayor, or photograph the 1679 datestone above a stable door. Houses are built from the hill downwards: ground floors become basements two streets further on, giving the village a topsy-turvy sense of level. Locals hang Serrano hams from balcony rails; the hams swing like metronomes in the wind that sneaks through the Puerto de Lizarraga gap.

When hunger strikes, the safest introduction to regional cooking is Casa Pedro’s menú de la bodega: vegetable soup, roast lamb, almond cake and half a bottle of DO Navarra rosé for €18. If that sounds too committed, Asador Casa Tomás will sell you a single portion of cordero asado—pink, herb-crusted, familiar to anyone who has eaten Sunday lamb in Yorkshire, only here it arrives with piquillo peppers rather than mint sauce. Vegetarians get a thick pisto (Spanish ratatouille) topped with a fried egg; ask for it without the egg and no one bats an eyelid.

Circular Walks Among Vines and Vultures

Three way-marked loops start from the upper fountain. The shortest (4 km, yellow dashes) circles the ridge through holm-oak scrub and returns past the Ermita de San Miguel, a stone shed with a bell-gable and views over the cereal ocean. Spring brings fluorescent green wheat; by July the colour has baked to pale gold and the only shade is your own hat. Take water—there are no cafés outside the walls, and the altitude dehydrates faster than you expect.

Longer routes drop 300 m to the Río Aragón, climb back through rosemary and thyme, and can be linked to create a 14 km figure-of-eight. Griffon vultures circle on thermals; their two-metre wingspan casts moving shadows across the path. In winter the same trails turn to red mud after rain, and a sharp overnight frost can glaze the cobbles. Snow is rare but not impossible: February 2021 brought 15 cm, cutting road access for twenty-four hours.

How to Get There, Where to Sleep, When to Leave

Public transport does not exist. Fly to Bilbao, Zaragoza or Biarritz, hire a car, and allow ninety minutes. The nearest railway station is Tafalla, 10 km south; pre-book a taxi (€18–20) because none wait outside the platform. Accommodation is limited to Casa Amparo, a three-room B&B that won a TripAdvisor Travellers’ Choice award in 2023, or one of six self-catering houses rented through Navarra Rural. Weekend lets are preferred; mid-week travellers may find themselves the sole overnight guests, with the village bar shuttered by 22:00 and silence thick enough to hear the church clock strike three.

Spring and autumn give the best compromise between daylight and temperature. July and August are scorching; thermometers hit 35 °C at midday, and the stone streets radiate heat until well after sunset. November can be glorious—clear air, copper vines—but short: dusk starts at 17:30, and the church closes at 18:00 precisely.

The Honest Verdict

San Martín de Unx is a half-day stop, not a base for a week. Pair it with hill-top Ujué, fifteen minutes east, and you have a satisfying afternoon of Romanesque towers and ridge-top vistas. Expect quiet, not nightlife; stone, not souvenirs; ham, hilly lanes and the occasional hawk overhead. Arrive with sturdy shoes, a bottle of water and the phone number of the key-keeper, and the village will reward you with twenty-four centuries of labour distilled into one steep, sun-baked grid of streets. Miss the booking times, turn up in flip-flops, or hope for a late-night bar and you will discover why the population stays politely, unapologetically, at five hundred.