Auritz-Burguete

Auritz-Burguete sits just three kilometres south of Roncesvalles and offers a quieter alternative for pilgrims who want to press on a little further before stopping, or who missed a bed in the monastery albergue. It is a classic Basque village of stone houses with painted wooden balconies, and the surrounding forests and the Irati river give it a calm that the busier Roncesvalles sometimes lacks.

Ernest Hemingway fished for trout on the Irati and stayed in the village while writing The Sun Also Rises. The connection is genuine and the landscape he described is still recognisable today. The bar in the village is the kind of place where you can sit with a coffee and a tortilla and feel genuinely part of rural Navarre rather than the pilgrim stream.

There is a small albergue and a shop for supplies. For pilgrims walking to Zubiri, Burguete makes a good early breakfast stop if you are not staying, or a comfortable overnight that leaves you well placed for the long descent through the Basque foothills the following day.