Antequera sits in the middle of Andalusia like a coin in a pocket, and the two great dolmens stand on its northern edge, barely more than a kilometre from the centre. Menga and Viera were built more than five thousand years ago by farming people who dragged enormous blocks of stone into place, and Menga is one of the biggest megalithic chambers in Europe, with a roof of slabs that weigh many tonnes each. You walk into a long corridor of stone, with a mound of earth above, and the scale of it hits you before any explanation does.
What makes Menga strange is its orientation. Most such tombs face the sunrise, but Menga points at a limestone mountain called the Peña de los Enamorados, a rock whose outline looks like the face of a sleeping man in profile. People have told a legend about two lovers from rival faiths for centuries, but the builders, who could not have heard it, were already looking at that same shape. Viera, a few steps away, is straighter and lined up on the rising sun at the equinoxes. In 2016 the dolmens, together with the nearby El Romeral tholos and the mountains of the Peña and El Torcal, were listed by UNESCO as a single site.
For riding, you reach Antequera from the south along roads that cross rolling grain country and olive groves. It is a gentle landscape after the mountains around Ronda, with wide bends, long straights and a very open sky. The wind can be strong on the plain, and in July and August you will be riding in heat that begins at ten in the morning. Spring and autumn are the right seasons, with green wheat in March and low evening light in October.
The town is a proper stop. With more than forty thousand people, it has several petrol stations and plenty of cafés, and the local dishes are worth the time: the dense bread called mollete for breakfast, the thick cold tomato and cod soup called porra antequerana for lunch, and bienmesabe, a cake of almonds and sweet cream that is probably best saved for the afternoon. Parking beside the dolmens is easy for a bike. Visits are managed by the site, so check ahead whether a timed slot is needed, and plan on about an hour.