Mosquitoes don’t like blue…

The storms follow one another and are strangely similar… Lots of rain and a night in a blizzard were on the agenda for the last few days, before the sun finally returned and we could finally enjoy the beautiful landscapes of Navarre…

Everyone we spoke to confirmed it: this spring has been extremely rainy in Aragon and Navarre. In fact, you only have to look at the flooded fields everywhere to realize that it must have rained a little more than usual… And since Marvin is not a big fan of mud, it limits the possibilities for nature getaways… So, we visited some of the “Prettiest Villages in Spain” (it’s not us saying it, that’s their official designation 😜)

Uncastillo

After our night in the Aguarales de Valpalmas, we had to find a more or less sheltered spot for the next stop, given the weather forecast. To be honest, the problem isn’t really the rain, but rather the fact that the ground around here is 100% clay, and as soon as it gets a little wet, it becomes an ice rink or a quagmire (depending on how compacted it is) where Marvin plays Holiday on Ice…

Our first option was Pozo Pígalo, a large pool of water in a torrent, in an area that almost looks like the Pyrenees, and where it would have been very pleasant to spend a few days. However, the place has a slight drawback: it’s in a huge dead zone that covers this entire part of Aragon. There’s no phone signal, and therefore, no internet either. And since we still had to work a bit, we reluctantly resigned ourselves to heading back the other way to go back to civilisation…

Uncastillo, another of the “Prettiest Villages in Spain,” was on our route, and there seemed to be a place, a little upstream from the village, on the banks of a reservoir, where we could spend the night without having to get out the winch to set off again the next day. So that’s where we spent the first rainy night in this series, waiting for the next morning for a short hour’s respite to allow us to visit the village, which was indeed very pretty…

Sádaba and the Bardenas Canal

It’s been a few days since we noticed, in these pretty little villages that seem to have resisted the Spanish fashion for red bricks, that some houses had the edges of all their windows and doors painted in a more or less dark blue (we see an example in one of the previous photos)… After extensive research, we are able to explain why. It turns out that painting the frames of doors and windows in blue is an old grandmother’s trick to keep flies and mosquitoes away. Because yes, as any good biologist should know, flies and mosquitoes don’t like blue!… Just like that… It’s a fact… Some don’t like gluten, and well, flies and mosquitoes don’t like blue… As it turns out, there’s no accounting for taste… So there you have it, we’ll leave you with the information, which will always be useful for starting a conversation at a Christmas dinner or any other family gathering…

Armed with our scientific findings, we spent our second rainy night on the banks of the Bardenas Canal, one of the many canals that crisscross this part of Spain in all directions to irrigate fields that would otherwise be as dry as the Bardenas Reales desert (very close by)… The region is actually quite pretty, with immense green fields (thanks to the canal in question) and small, rounded hills that look a bit like something out of Hobbitland, in Lord of the Rings…

So yes, in the photos, we see sunshine and blue skies, but make no mistake, it was only for two short hours, before it started raining again until late into the night…

Ujué

The weather forecast had warned us that Monday would be 100% rain, all day long. And the weather forecast wasn’t wrong… But the good thing was that it was supposed to be the last rainy day for a while, and the sun was going to come back on Tuesday… So we decided to leave our spot by the canal to go to Ujué, another of the “Prettiest Villages in Spain”, perched on a hill surrounded by terraced fields, like rice paddies… Well, we only saw that the next day, because when we arrived, not only was it pouring, but we were also in the clouds. So, we barely saw where we were parking!…

And what the weather forecast hadn’t told us (or perhaps we had forgotten to check it) was that in addition to the rain, the night would be punctuated by violent winds, up to 90 km/h… We were lucky for once, we were parked right downwind… But still, that at the top of the hill in Ujué, it still blew hard!…

That said, the village of Ujué is indeed charming, and its fortified church is impressive! And indeed, on Tuesday morning, the sun had returned (even if the wind hadn’t really weakened…)…

Foz de Arbaiun

After our sunny visit to Ujué, we left for our first stop of the day: Javier. Okay, well, put like that, it doesn’t mean much. So here’s a second clue: if Saint Francis of Assisi was born in Assisi, where was Saint Francis Xavier born?… That’s right!… in Javier (or Xavier in Navarrese, Catalan, or English).

It turns out that Francisco (Francis) was the youngest of five siblings in the family formed by Juan de Jasso, a doctor of law from the University of Bologna and president of the Royal Council of Navarre, and the noblewoman María de Azpilcueta. Francisco lived with mum and dad in their family castle (in Javier) until, at 19, he left for Paris to study at the Sorbonne. He met Ignacio de Loyola, became a Jesuit, and set out to discover the world and spread the gospel. It was particularly in Asia that the young Francisco distinguished himself, since, after passing through India, Ceylon (modern-day Sri Lanka, for those of you too young to know), Malacca and its strait, and the Moluccas, he continued as far as Japan (which Europeans had only heard of at the time through Marco Polo), and ventured inland in the country (something no European, not even Marco Polo, had done before).

As a little anecdote, if the Europeans partly discovered Japan and its culture thanks to the letters of Francis Xavier, conversely, the Japanese considered Francis Xavier as the archetype of European civilization (gulps! 🙄)… Little Francisco also undertook to go to China (where the entry of any foreigner was punishable by death, at the time), but he died before, on the island of Sanchuan, near Canton (today Guangzhou, for the youngest). His body was repatriated to Goa (India), where he has been venerated ever since, as well as throughout the Church, as Saint Francis Xavier, considered the “Missionary of the East” and the saint co-patron of missions and missionaries (along with Thérèse of Lizieux, who was born in…? 🤓), and by extension, of travelers, a little… too…

All this to say that Mom and Dad’s castle is quite impressive, and the church that was built next to it in honor of the “youngest of the family” is even more impressive!

After that, we went to reflect on the adventures of little Francisco on the heights of the Arbaiun canyon (or Foz de Arbaiun, in the local language), one of the many canyons found in the region which, besides the impressive 6km long and 385m high canyon (60m higher than the Eiffel Tower), offers a prime ornithological site for observing vultures (griffon and Egyptian), peregrine falcons, some bearded vultures and even two or three Bonelli’s eagles!… And as the vultures are already nesting at this time of year, it’s the perfect place for an afternoon of birdwatching, while enjoying the returned sun!…

Back to Blog

In NAVARRE, as IN ARAGON, LEAVE NO TRACE!

– Always travel on public ways and respect the signs.
– Limit noise and interfere as little as possible with wildlife.
– Respect the other users.
– Leave rocks, plants and other natural features as you found them and respect historic sites.
– Take your waste with you and throw it into the appropriate containers, in the nearest village.
– Do not camp inside protected areas and do not make any fires.