Tudela Old Town & Cathedral

Tudela is the second-largest city of Navarre, situated in the south of the region on the bank of the Ebro River, 83 kilometres from Pamplona. Settled since Roman times and captured by Moorish forces in the early 8th century, the city remained under Islamic rule for over three centuries before the Christian reconquest in 1119 — a history that has left a distinct multicultural architectural legacy unique in Navarre. The old town centres on the medieval Plaza de los Fueros (also called Plaza Vieja), an arcaded square surrounded by 18th-century buildings that replaced the former mosque, Jewish quarter, and original market. The cathedral of Santa María is the architectural centrepiece: a transitional Romanesque-Gothic structure begun immediately after the reconquest in 1119 and completed in the 13th century. Its west façade features the celebrated Portal of the Last Judgment (Portal del Juicio Final), one of the richest carved stone doorways of medieval Iberia, with over a hundred individual sculpted figures arranged in a complex theological programme. The old town also preserves a former Jewish quarter (judería) with a surviving medieval street plan, the Renaissance Palacio del Marqués de San Adrián, and the Gothic Church of San Nicolás. Tudela is renowned throughout Spain for its Ribera del Ebro vegetable gastronomy — artichokes, white asparagus, cardoons, and piquillo peppers of exceptional quality are sold at the Thursday market.