In October 2016, I set off on my motorbike journey to the Bardenas Reales in Spain - 4,000 kilometers in just eight days. It was the kind of trip that strips everything down to the essentials: just you, the road, and whatever you can carry. Complete self-reliance, and total freedom.
The Bardenas Reales is a surreal, semi-desert landscape in the southeast of Navarre, covering around 42,000 hectares. It’s a place of raw, sculpted beauty - arid plains, jagged clay formations, and windswept plateaus that look more like the American Southwest than northern Spain. Despite its barren appearance, the area pulses with quiet energy and has a strangely cinematic quality. It’s no wonder it’s been used as a backdrop for films and series like Game of Thrones.
Riding through the Bardenas on two wheels, with nothing but wind and silence around you, feels like moving through another world. A world shaped by time, erosion, and a kind of wild, ungovernable beauty.
My BMW
