It was a cold, grey day but we are intrepid explorers (!) and so we set off to see the Citadel and the Taconera Gardens in Pamplona. We took a taxi to the far side of the Citadel and planned to walk back to the hotel through the park. The taxi ride was hair-raisingly fast, but we arrived in one piece! It was worth doing because we went through the ‘new’ town which is quite different to the ‘old’ town.
The Citadel
Philip II ordered the building of the Citadel in 1570 as part of strengthening the defences of the city against the French. The work took more than thirty years to complete and over the centuries further work was done to defend the city. By 1964 it was not longer used by the military and was converted to a public park, with some of the military buildings preserved for other uses. The area around the Citadel is also a park, the Vuelta del Castillo.
The originals layout of the Citadel was a 5-sided star shape, but the greyed out area was demolished as the city expanded at the end of the 19th century.
General Pena was 67 and retired from the Civil Guard. On Christmas Eve he was on his way to wish his former colleagues a Happy Christmas when ETA shot him in the back on the edge of the Citadel.
Taconera Gardens
This is the oldest park in Pamplona, a formal garden dating from 1830 and in the French style. It was immaculate: no litter and not a leaf out of place on the hedges and parterres.
The Portal de la Taconera, now freestanding, must once have been part of the walls and attached to the Citadel. This was the area of the Citadel first demolished to expand the city. Once inside the park you can see the ‘ditch’ and the former bastion of the walls.
The trees are magnificent: redwoods, magnolias, ash trees, gingko biloba and many others I couldn’t identify.
You can happily wander up and down the avenues and walks in the gardens for quite a long time – how I wished I had the ‘proper’ camera. And then, suddenly at one end, there is a ‘farm’, with ducks, peacocks and chickens!
This impressive memorial dates from the 1950s in memory of Julian Gayarre who was apparently a tenor with an extraordinarily versatile voice.
Refreshments
All of this was thirsty work and so we walked back into the old town and the Cafe Peregrine for refreshments.
An evening out
I thought it would be fun to sample some tapas or pintxos in the evening instead of having dinner. I looked up the best tapas bars in Pamplona and we decided to start at the Gaucho Bar.
It is small, in a narrow street near to the Plaza Castillo, and it was jam-packed! But it certainly was fun! We enjoyed txangurro and very garlicky mushrooms while watching the ebb and flow through the restaurant.
Then we moved on to San Nicolas and the Asador Katuzarra and a dish of eggs with seafood. It had a very strong taste and perhaps I should have paid more attention because a few hours later I lay sleepless with the worst acid repeats ever. The next day the hotel was helpful and a pharmacy provided something to calm things down. It was rather a sad end to a super day.
In spite of very cold weather we had a wonderful day exploring the Citadel and the Taconera Gardens in Pamplona.