One more :o question regarding September festivals:

According to my Rough Guide there is a Patron Saints day in Olite on Sept 14th. Can anyone confirm this? What types of festivities go on during this festival?

Last spring I was able to visit Tui (Galicia) on their Patron Saint day and it was one of the highlights of my entire trip. :p

If I knew for sure this was the date of Olite's festival I would arrange my itinerary to be there!

Olite has a month and a half of fiestas on the schedule:

Things get going the weekend before the 26th with medieval festivals (cabezudos, etc.) showing all the cast of characters from medieval times (not the Southern California dinner theater...). On the 26th, La Virgen del Cólera gets her festival, and there are two in September.

Olite is the Navarran wine guild is located in Olite, and they have 15 days of associated festivities in September, then the local fiestas kick off on Sept. 13th and go for about a week.

Since Olite has a wonderfully-preserved old quarter, you're going to love the medieval festivals. I've been to Olite twice and always try to make time in my itinerary, festivals or not!!!

Wow! Thanks

I was just looking at the parador and it looks incredible. I've always been fascinated by Navarre after reading in high school about the rogue King of Navarre becoming King of all of France and marrying Catherine de Medici. Apparently the parador is the former palace of the kings. :p

Now some more questions:

Is Pamplona worthwhile to visit and if so could I base myself in Olite for a day trip to Pamplona (considering I'll be using public transport).

On my list of possible considerations of places to visit I had also thought of La Rioja. If Olite has harvest festivals and such do I need to make a special effort to visit the Rioja?

It sounds like mid-September is a great time to visit Northern Spain (well, when isn't a great time to visit Spain?).

Hoping someone can help me out with my previous questions and now another :o (I know it's a really specific area so I'm crossing my fingers):

I have confirmed that the festival in Olite starts on Sept 13 and goes through the 19th. Will there be an extra "special" event on the 13th (processional, etc...) or would it matter which day I attend? The parador does not have vacancies for the 13th but I was able to get a room on the 14th and 15th.

Again, thanks in advance...

Cathy: For a bit of comparison, the Sanfermines in Pamplona "start" on the 6th, and the special event in the plaza del ayuntamiento is great, but the first encierro doesn't go until the 7th...that being said, I think you'll miss something if you're not in Olite on the 13th, but I think that there will be much to see on the other days, too.

The parador is beautiful. It was the former residence of royalty. Sancho el Fuerte started it with a castle in the 12th C., and Carlos III of Navarra completed it with expansion in the 14th and 15th. It is an incredible place and surrounding old town adds to the flavor.

Pamplona is just up the autopista from Olite, so you should be able to find regular buses from O to P. For me, Pamplona is always worth the visit. September offers a bit of a respite from the hot summer sun in Pamplona (but not too much yet), and visiting the casco viejo and ciudadela park is something I'll never tire of...

Unless you're a winebibber, Olite's festival should give you what you need in the arena of fall harvest festivals, wine festivals, etc. There are those who contend that the Rioja region is Spain's finest for wine, however, so you can plan according to your own taste.

P.S. If you don't post on your trip when you get back, none of us will ever speak to you again!

Enjoy!!!, and if you're in SoCal, we all need to get together this fall and see your pictures when you get back!

CaliBasco: Thank you so much for your response.

As it works out it would be very difficult for me to get to Olite the same day that I land in Madrid (at least from what I've researched-if anyone knows better please let me know) unless I get a plane to Pamplona and it's around $170 USD (a little steep when I'll probably want to fly to Barcelona within Spain). Both the bus or train from Madrid would put me in Pamplona too late to catch the last bus to Olite unless I fly into Barcelona and catch an early train through Zaragosa to Pamplona. And it's all up in the air as to where I'll fly at this point since I'm flying stand by and I won't know until a few days before how I want to do it.

So now I'm thinking of spending my first night in Pamplona (or Zaragoza ) so I can sightsee a bit the next day then head onto Olite and just sit back and enjoy!

Here I thought my trip to Northern Spain would be simple to plan since there really weren't that many cities I was "interested" in (wrong! ) visiting.

Yes, I'll be sure to post when I get back and perhaps even when I'm traveling. It will be interesting doing most of this on my own (single, blonde female), using public transportation and a very limited spanish vocabulary (much less basque or castillan).

I do live in the LA area and would love to get a group of board members together. I found an OLD post about a dinner group that used to meet in Pasadena but it looks like that fizzled out before I joined this board.