Puente de Santiago (Behobia Border Bridge)
The modest iron footbridge at Behobia, on the southern edge of Irún, is where the Camino del Norte pilgrimage route crosses the Bidasoa River from France into Spain — and where you can literally stride from one country to another in three steps. It is one of the least-visited yet most historically loaded spots in the entire Basque borderland.
History on the bridge
This crossing has witnessed centuries of cross-border drama: Napoleonic troops marched over a predecessor bridge here, and the Bidasoa was the dividing line during the Spanish Civil War when thousands of refugees fled north into France.
A modest stone marker on the Spanish bank notes the Camino del Norte route, and on busy spring mornings you can watch pilgrims with scallop shells on their packs stride purposefully into Spain, eyes fixed on Santiago de Compostela some 820 km to the west.
Walking the riverbank
From the bridge, a flat riverside path follows the Bidasoa south through reed beds and willow groves toward the Plaiaundi wetland reserve — a twenty-minute stroll that feels a world away from the motorway roaring overhead on the A-8.
Birdwatchers should bring binoculars: the estuary edges here host spoonbills, grey herons and, during autumn migration, thousands of wood pigeons funnelling south through the Pyrenean passes.
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