Bardenas Reales National Park

The Bardenas Reales semi-desert is one of the most interesting places in Spain, reminiscent of the Monument Valley in the United States. At the same time, there is quite a bit of information on the national park and we did not find any normal maps.


As in other similar places, you need to come here in sunny weather, preferably in the late afternoon. To do this, we settled in the El Villa Castejon hotel (booking.com), it has the best location for visiting the park. There is still a design hotel nearby, Hotel Aire de Bardenas (booking.com), but it is much more expensive, so decide what suits you better.

We recommend El Villa Castejon as it is inexpensive, located on the autobahn and has an outdoor pool in the summer. There is also a great dinner where you can choose any meat or seafood and cook it by yourself or ask a cook. In Spain, such restaurants are common, but we visited for the first time.






As soon as the weather improved, we went to the park. There are no tickets here, you can even come on foot, though the park is large and you need a car. Any car, not only SUV.


We entered the park from the other side and drove to the main entrance, here is our route (google.maps).


It took us about 3 hours with all the stops. On the official website you can see the maps of all allowed routes and a map of all the interesting places.

We entered here N 42 11.265 W 1 20.173 (point 1). At point 2 (N 42 11.754 W 1 25.181) made the first stop. Here you need to climb on this hill.


The path is quite difficult, you need good shoes and a sense of balance.




But this view from the top is amaizing


The view in the other direction. All what you see is a military tank range, the access is restricted and there are warning signs everywhere.


The next is point 3 (N 42 11.956 W 1 26.104). It is a parking lot on a hill which offers an alternative view of the same sandy cliffs. We remind you once again that such beauty can be seen only with proper light.

You can walk along these sand dunes, here is a description of the hiking trail.


Be careful at the edges.


Then we drove through the park for about an hour, stopping for a photo.


Until we reached the symbol of the park - the Castildetierra rock, N 42 12.571 W 1 30.940.


Since the entire surface of the park consists of soft clay rocks and sandstone, the wind is constantly changing the shape of the rocks.


The road from the Castildetierra to the main entrance (N 42 10.765 W 1 31.985) is slightly better, so if you are worried about your car, you can drive only to this location.

Nearby there is still a place called Cabezo de las Cortinillas (N 42 12.261 W 1 30.015). There you can also climb the hill, though we did not have enough time. This is a filming location of "The World Is Not Enough" (1999).




Many other films and series were also shot in the park, the most famous, of course, is “Game of Thrones”.




Getting there: the central entrance and tourist information office N 42 10.762 W 1 31.990. The nearest major city with the train station is Tudela.