The Sierra del Segura country along the border of Albacete and Murcia is rough, empty and beautiful, with limestone cliffs, juniper scrub and dry valleys that run south toward the Segura river. Fuensanta III lies in this landscape, about thirteen kilometres from Letur and almost as far from Socovos and Férez, the three small villages that frame the area. The distance from any of them tells you how far off the beaten track you are: here you are in open hill country with the sound of wind and the smell of rosemary.
Letur, the nearest, is a lovely village on a ridge above a ravine, with narrow lanes, whitewashed houses and an old quarter that recalls its Moorish past. It has fewer than thirteen hundred people, so the services are modest, but it is worth a stop for the views alone. Socovos has a ruined castle on a hill, and Férez sits above the river with a similar air of quiet decline and beauty.
The rock shelters of this district are part of the Mediterranean Basin rock art tradition that UNESCO listed in 1998, and the wider region holds some of the most important Levantine sites in Spain. As always, the paintings are fragile, and ask locally before you set out, because tracks can be rough and signposts few.
The riding is excellent for those who like silence. Roads wind over bare hills and through small valleys, with wide bends, little traffic and occasional gravel. The surface varies from smooth to rough, and long stretches have no services at all, so fill the tank and carry food and water. Summer is very hot, and the best seasons are spring, when the slopes are green and flowering, and autumn, when the light is clear.
Socovos and Letur have a few bars, where you may find a simple lunch of migas, gazpacho manchego, a stew of game with flat bread, or roast lamb, and the regional pastries of Albacete. Yeste, to the west, is bigger and the likely place for fuel.
Keep to the tracks and leave gates as you find them, because this is working land for sheep and goats.