For about 80 years, a rural service affectionately known to locals as
El Trenico, or ‘the little train’, ran along a narrow-gauge railway through the wooded mountains and scrolling wheat fields of Navarre province and the Basque Country. The line closed in 1967, but local authorities have invested pretty heavily in repurposing it for walkers and cyclists, with diversions en route ranging from public murals and industrial history exhibits to stargazing and birdwatching.
Certain sections have been supplanted by motorways or swallowed by urban areas, including the outskirts of Estella-Lizarra, a medieval town that still serves as a major hub on the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage trail, marked by 12th-century Romanesque churches and palaces.