Fodor's Expert Review Selva de Irati

A 15-km (9-mile) detour north through the town of Orbaizeta up to the headwaters of the Irati River, at the Irabia Reservoir, gets you a good look at the Selva de Irati, one of Europe's major beech forests and the source of much of the lumber for the Spanish Armada. Today it's a popular nature reserve that's veined with trails from which you might glimpse wildlife like deer, woodpeckers, wild boar, and even wolverines. Notably it also contains megalithic cromlechs and dolmens around the villages of Azpegi and Orbaizeta.