ARIBE HANGING BRIDGE

The town of Aribe is located in one of the most beautiful corners of the Eastern Navarro Pyrenees. It is the geographical, administrative and communications center of the Aezkoa Valley. Downstream from Aribe, the Irati River makes its way through Paleozoic materials, forming the Olaldea Gorge, presided over by the Arrigorriak spur. This is an outcrop of red sandstone from the Devonian (400 million years old) on which the spectacular Aritztokia-Arrigorri viewpoint is installed.

From the Aribe information panel, which is located near the medieval bridge (next to the NA-140 highway), we can take two routes: 1/ a short one that passes through the spa and the inclusa, 2/ and another long one that takes us to the ancient oak of Garaioa and some ruins of old iron mines.
This flat and simple walk begins at the information panel, where a vertical orientation post tells us the direction we should follow to go to the spa. We head towards the urban center of Aribe (not towards the medieval bridge), we cross the NA-140 highway and before passing the “new” bridge on the right there is a cement track that soon becomes a dirt road. We went under the “new” bridge. We walk along the track and to our right we have the bank of the Irati River and to the left green meadows from which we obtain forage for the cattle to spend the winter. The trees along the riverbed give us shade along the way. In several points the vegetation on the shore of the Irati River is scarce and allows us to access its waters. 

We passed next to an old spa from the 18th century, a time when it was famous for its medicinal waters. Next to the spa we found some scaffolding to pass under, probably to protect us in the event that there was a landslide in the building, and a few meters later we came across the suspension bridge.

From the suspension bridge and after taking some photos, we decided to undo the path to return to Aribe again, since the path that goes along the other bank of the river was with a lot of vegetation and could barely be seen.

Photo by Nemet