Travel Information

The fruit was an apple of paradise. The companion of Adam fell, but now that is in season, you have to travel to Navarre and leave you too in a typical cider house where besides tasting the cider of the season you can attend the whole process of its preparation.

It’s frothy, bubbly, sour, bitter, sweet, fresh, straw-colored, evocative, digestive … and besides all this a drink of celebration, the perfect excuse to gather with family or group of friends. Well know in the area of Baztán-Bidasoa, famous for its cider tradition since centuries. Since mid-January, cider season opens with the opening of the kupelas (barrels) and the celebration of cider (stick that plugs the hole through which flows the first cider), and until January, when he concludes its evolution, this corner of Navarre offers a tempting invitation to explore what lies behind the cider. You can not lose.

The small town of Lekarotz, immersed in the Bidasoa valley, a claim is all natural and gourmet food in this time of year and not only for his inspiring landscape, with extensive forests of beech, oak and chestnut, also host one of the cider more typical Bidasoa Valley: Larraldea. Located 11 miles from the Manor Park Bertiz and less than thirty caves and Urdazubi Zugarramurdi-Urdax, in the traditional mountain village which is located performs the complete cycle, ie here grown apples are harvested and cider is made, a process that includes its pressing, fermentation, storage in reservoirs and bottling. But besides this, it is eaten, including ecological, if the season allows, in a witty around their tables and the menu runs typical.

The dishes of chorizo in cider, cod omelette, cod with peppers, grilled meat, and for dessert, cheese with walnuts and quince are the rich dishes cooked in the traditional way to arrive at robust tables wood. And between courses, kupelas many visits as you like, because each has its own flavor-cider depending on the barrel and the fermentation process and, above all, because the cider here should not stop crashing into the glass .

Although Navarra A wide range of cider spread throughout Spain, only five, among which is Larraldea, have the distinction of being a complete cycle. For the rest you have to get closer to Lekunberri Beruete, Lesaka and Aldatz:

Toki Alai
Just outside the town of Lekunberri on the road to San Miguel de Aralar, this is a family that produces cider cider extracted from its own plantation of apple since 2000. Proposes every day a traditional menu and the ability to take out a few bottles to enjoy at home too.

Behetxonea
The Cider House occupies the ground floor of a renovated traditional farmhouse in the town of Beruete, about two kilometers from the town of the locality. Its dining room, decorated with regional motifs, you can taste the typical menu, but also a letter based on a variety of fish and meat, on the first floor, visitors can watch the production methods of cider.

Linddurrenborda
At this village on the outskirts of Lesaka must arrive to try their tacos and tortilla cod, always accompanied by home made cider with apple trees are grown here.

Martitxonea
In Aldatz, in the mountains of Larraun, for those who enjoy the mountain and gastronomy is an essential destination. And also very good cider.

The large spa in the Alps is in Leukerbad, a small Swiss village in 1500 living neighbors. A left corner in which to embrace the vastness of the white mountains and the warmth of his endless hot springs.

Imagine four million liters of water gushing from the bowels of daily alpine mountains at a temperature of 51 degrees. The snow is just one more in this festival companion thermal health and wellness in Leukerbad, a village in southwestern Switzerland considered “the largest spa in the Alps.

The Romans discovered the healing effects of the hot springs of Leukerbad. And see how the ailments of bones and skin problems are alleviated “miraculously” through these waters of Torrenthorn still come today, the nearby mountain where on clear days can see the legendary Mont Blanc and is very popular today among Alpine skiing enthusiasts. Then and now water flowing through the limestone rock, penetrating into the earth at 3,000 meters deep, to acquire a strong mineralization of calcium, sodium, strontium, iron and fluorine. Any source of health enjoyed by the 1,500 residents of Leukerbad, foreign tourists and even the Swiss Olympic team, which is produced here in an ultramodern clinic before attending the major events of winter and summer.

A journey of forty years

The question for the people of Leukerbad was until recently a guess how long it took to get water to the 65 hot springs in town. It was known that nine liters per minute cramming its springs, but it was only after making a curious experiment of “ink” a substantial volume of filtered water from the mountains when it was discovered that it took no less than forty years to appear in town. There is still a neighbor who analyzed the find in disbelief.

Today, Leukerbad, located at 1411 meters of altitude to its beautiful mountain coat Gemmi (in one of the walls of his top after almost a thousand meters can see the larger flag of Switzerland), is dotted with swimming pools, more twenty, led by the historic Burgerbad, a place well-known in the nineteenth century which proposes ten pools filled with jets, slides and a natural cave in the rock, a mixture of pool and sauna can actually skin pores open although one does not want.

The thermal paradise is complemented by private institutions and individual hotels that offer visitors their “spa” with the same characteristics of the water. Among the first highlights the Lindner Alpentherme with a huge choice of 250 treatments and an original Roman-Irish thermal circuit of eleven steps, with “hot and cold surprises” - which lets leave the bodies free from impurities through exfoliation techniques. The tour, which we must “cover” no bathing suit, ending at the top of the center with massage oils and soaps Hindu of Provence and a half hour of relaxation with a unique view of the pool outdoor Jacuzzis, always surrounded by snow. The price of this original ‘healthy walk’ is affordable, about 50 euros at the exchange, but we must expect that the whole process takes about two hours and even more can be extended if it matches the emission in the center of film in several languages within the pool itself, to 36 degrees. Another novel proposal to see movies in a swimsuit that is not lost.

Leukerbad has become well thanks to its waters into the third most important tourist destination in Switzerland, especially for Russians and Italians, after Zermatt and St. Moritz. Proof of this are his numbers: 28 hotels and resorts with over 1,500 beds, 1,700 apartments and 50 restaurants with varied cuisine and wines (more than 50 varieties achieved from vineyards planted at 1,100 meters) … Even the Swiss (75%) and Germans (10%) also enjoy it mainly because it is an excellent proposal to combine skiing and spas.