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The orange court
A garden of orange trees once stood in the palace courtyard
The entrance to the New Palace of the kings of Navarre is through Plaza de Carlos III el Noble. A semicircular arch leads into an inner square, the Patio de los Naranjos, named because the King placed orange plants and other fruit trees there. The floor is paved today, but it was originally a garden of lemon, orange, jasmine and mulberries.
The new palace
A queen found the old castle uncomfortable, so a new one rose
Charles III "the Noble" wanted a stable residence for the court, and his wife Eleanor of Castile found the Old Palace old and uncomfortable. Work on the New Palace began around 1388 under the master builder Martín Périz de Estella, and was still under way in 1424. Sculptors, a painter and a tapestry maker came from other lands to work on it.
The royal zoo
The palace kept a zoo, with a lion, a camel and a giraffe
The palace had hanging gardens, some nearly 20 meters high, and a zoological park with a lion, a camel, parrots, hunting dogs, hawks, four African buffalos and a giraffe. The lion was a gift from Peter IV of Aragon. At the foot of the cistern tower lay a deep moat called the liony, where the King kept his dangerous beasts.
The feasts
Feasts, tournaments and bullfights were held at the palace
Jousting tournaments were held in 1439 during the days of celebration for the wedding of the Prince of Viana and Agnes of Cleves. In 1387 King Charles II "the Bad" organized a bullfight in which three Muslim men performed as toreros. A document of 1408 refers to a terrace for playing Basque pelota at the palace.
The fire
A guerrilla general burned the palace so the French could not use it
In 1813, during the Peninsular War, the guerrilla general Espoz y Mina set fire to the palace so that French troops could not occupy it. The war left it in ruins. Restoration ran from 1937 to 1967 and was free in places: the tops of several towers and walls were recreated, and the raised garden was rebuilt with three galleries in place of four.
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The words are a retelling of the Wikipedia article Palace of the Kings of Navarre of Olite, and are shared under CC BY-SA 4.0. They are checked against those articles, and a fact that is not in them is left out.