The painted women of Los Grajos are among the most famous figures in Spanish rock art. In a shelter in the limestone hills just outside Cieza, prehistoric painters depicted a group of human figures, several of them women with wide skirts and raised arms, often interpreted as dancers, alongside animals and other motifs. The Los Grajos shelters are part of the UNESCO-listed Rock Art of the Mediterranean Basin on the Iberian Peninsula, and they are protected, so visits need to be arranged with the local tourist office in Cieza.
Cieza sits on the Segura river in the north of Murcia, a town of about thirty-five thousand surrounded by a sea of fruit orchards. Every year, from late February to mid March, the peach, nectarine and apricot trees bloom, and the valley turns pink and white. The town's history goes deep: on a hill above it lies Medina Siyâsa, the ruins of an Islamic town abandoned in the thirteenth century, with excavated houses and streets, and finds displayed in the town museum.
The Segura valley between Cieza, Abarán and Blanca is a narrow oasis between dry, bare mountains. Abarán is known for its norias, huge water wheels that lift river water into irrigation channels, a technology that goes back to Islamic times. Blanca, below a castle on a rock, sits beside a dramatic bend of the river.
For riders, the area offers a mix of valley roads through orchards and climbs into dry, rugged hills with long views. Traffic is light outside the towns, and the surfaces are generally good. Summer heat is intense, so ride early, and look for shade and water. Cieza has fuel, shops, bars and restaurants. Try the local fruit in season, and dishes like zarangollo, scrambled eggs with courgette and onion, a Murcian classic, best eaten with bread on a shaded terrace while the afternoon heat passes. Riders heading on toward the Sierra del Segura will find the roads get steadily wilder and emptier beyond Calasparra.