The Irati forest, straddling the border between Navarre and the French Basque Country, is one of the largest beech and fir forests in Europe, and Lizardoia is its wildest heart. This is a strictly protected reserve of primeval beech forest, where the trees have been left to grow, age and fall without human intervention, and it was inscribed in 2017 among Europe's ancient beech forests. Walking in the forest, you are surrounded by massive grey trunks, moss, ferns and the silence of a cathedral, broken only by birdsong and the rustle of leaves. Woodpeckers, including the rare white-backed woodpecker, live here, along with deer, wild boar and, in the high pastures, griffon vultures soaring overhead.
The forest has been used by people for centuries, for timber, grazing and charcoal. In the eighteenth century, the Spanish crown built an arms factory at Orbaizeta, using the forest's wood and iron from nearby mines to make cannonballs and weapons. The ruins of the factory, with its arches and canals overgrown with vegetation, are a striking sight in the valley below Lizardoia. Shepherds still bring their flocks to the high pastures in summer, and their stone huts dot the hillsides.
The riding here is some of the best in the Pyrenees. The road over the Port de Larrau, at around 1,570 metres, links the French village of Larrau with Ochagavía in Navarre, climbing through forest and over open mountain pastures with spectacular views of the Pic d'Orhy, the first two-thousand-metre peak of the Pyrenees from the west. The road is narrow, steep and twisty, with livestock wandering freely and no barriers in places; it is often closed by snow in winter. The roads to the Chalets d'Irati on the French side and to Orbaizeta on the Spanish side wind through the forest, with dense trees and damp, mossy surfaces.
There are no towns here, only small villages and mountain chalets. For fuel, Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port, about twenty kilometres away, Mauléon and Ochagavía are the nearest options, and it is wise to fill up before setting out. Try the Basque cheeses, like Ossau-Iraty, made from sheep's milk, and the local trout, and bring warm clothes: the weather in the mountains changes quickly, with fog, rain and cold even in summer.