The Royal Palace of Olite

Olite's palace went up in the early fifteenth century as a residence for Charles III of Navarre, and it was designed for comfort and display rather than defence: a stack of slender towers, galleries, turret staircases and terraces that once held gardens, an aviary and, reportedly, a lion pit. It fell into ruin and was rebuilt from the 1930s, so a good deal of what you climb is reconstruction based on old descriptions. The interiors are largely bare stone, which makes the roofline the real experience. Around it lies a small walled town of wine cellars and a Gothic church, set in Navarrese vineyard country.

Highlights

• The turret roofline - towers and galleries stacked with no defensive logic at all.
• The hanging terraces - planted roof gardens rebuilt on the upper level.
• The tower views - vineyards and the Navarrese plain from the top of the stairs.
• Santa Maria la Real - the carved Gothic portal on the church next door.

When to go

Late spring through autumn, ideally around the September grape harvest when the surrounding wine towns are working. The stone rooms are cold and unheated in winter. Weekday mornings are quiet; Navarrese school groups fill the stairs midweek in term time. Two to three hours covers the palace, the church and a walk around the walls.

Practical notes

The rooms are empty, with almost no furnishings or original decoration, and the restoration is openly conjectural in places, which purists find frustrating. Staircases are narrow, steep and repetitive. The town is tiny and quiet outside its wine bars, buses from Pamplona are infrequent, and the whole visit is comfortably done in a morning.

Nearby

The Navarra wine towns, the Bardenas Reales badlands and Pamplona's old quarter.

Key facts