The Serpis river runs through the green, folded country of the Comtat, west of Alcoi, and its valley is one of the prettiest in the Valencian interior. Planes, Benimarfull and Beniarrés are small villages in the hills, farming olive and almond and cherry, and the old Moorish heritage is easy to find in the narrow streets and the names. The Coves Roges, the Red Caves, are a series of rock shelters in the nearby cliffs, and they hold paintings that are part of the Mediterranean Basin rock art listed by UNESCO in 1998. Abric II is one of them, and the red paint on the rock is faint but clear.
The Moorish past is lively in the region. In the thirteenth century, after the Christian conquest of the Valencian kingdom, the Muslim population here rose several times under a leader called al-Azraq, who held castles in the valleys nearby, and the revolts lasted decades. Alcoi, the big town to the west, commemorates those struggles each April with its Moors and Christians festival, a three-day spectacle of costumes, parades and gunpowder that is famous across Spain. The villages around keep similar festivals on a smaller scale.
For a rider, the Comtat is a hidden delight. The roads follow the contours of the valleys with a good succession of bends, climb over low passes with views over terraced slopes, and drop to the Serpis river with its old bridges. Traffic is thin, and the surface is generally good. In summer the heat is fierce in the afternoon, and the shade of the cherry and almond trees is welcome. In winter the mornings can be frosty on the higher roads.
Planes has a few hundred people and a handful of bars, and there is little fuel in the villages, so fill up in Alcoi or Cocentaina before heading into the hills. The local cooking is mountain food, with stews of beans and vegetables and rice dishes. Spring and autumn are the best times, with mild days and clear skies, and the cherry blossom in February is a reward for the early rider.