Pyrenees Guide

Lying in the Baztan Valley a few minutes from Elizondo is this magnificent example of a typical Baztan village, surrounded by the tranquil green countryside that characterises the valley.

It is made up of six districts, the most notable of which is Bozate, where according to legend the ?agotes' used to live many years ago; they were a socially excluded collective about which there has been a great deal of speculation. In this neighbourhood the Santxotena open-air museum offers a fusion of history, art and tradition embodied in wood.

You can also admire the Armoury-Palace of the Ursúa family, the home of one of the oldest lineages in Navarre. Among the different religious buildings in the locality, the church of San Juan Bautista stands out with its slender bell-tower, and the convent with its imposing 18th century Baroque façade of Our Lady of the Angels.

A place of deep-rooted traditions, Arizkun still puts on an ancestral carnival whose protagonist is the hartza (bear in Basque).