Ordered leg totals agree within rounding. Stop distances are approximate sums of rounded legs. Stops, delays, approach and any separate return travel add time. Basis: planning record, not independently verified geometry.
Reading history stays on this device. My road watch requires a separate selection; opening it does not subscribe this ride.
Distances and riding times are planning figures. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
A 457 km round trip from Nerpio - roughly 7 h 52 in the saddle. It goes by way of Diosa madre, Abrigo de la fuente de montañoz I, Guijarral and back through Abrigo de la fuente de montañoz I. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,400 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available.
Waypoint introductions and full write-ups
1. Abriga de los Idolos
Nerpio is a small village that looks like it has been there for ever, with white houses, a church, a few bars and a plaza where old men sit in the sun, and it is worth getting to know before heading out to the shelters. Its position on a high plateau, at around a thousand metres, makes it cool in summer and cold in winter, and the village has a long tradition of mountain farming: cereals, almonds, sheep and, in the valley bottoms, fruit trees. The Abrigos de los Ídolos are under a kilometre and a half from the plaza.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Abriga de los Idolos is where the day begins. Next is Diosa madre.
2. Diosa madre
Some places on a map feel remote; this one actually is. The point named Diosa Madre, mother goddess, lies in the mountains of the Sierra de Segura, in the far southwest of Albacete province, roughly sixteen kilometres from Yeste and not far from the border with Jaén. The mountains themselves are the real experience.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Diosa madre comes up about 77 km into the recorded legs. Next is Abrigo de la fuente de montañoz I.
3. Abrigo de la fuente de montañoz I
Nerpio is about as far from anywhere as you can get in mainland Spain. The village sits in the southwestern corner of Albacete province, where Castilla-La Mancha meets Andalusia and Murcia, in the mountains of the Sierra de Segura, at the end of long, winding roads. It is known for its walnut trees, which line the valleys and give the village its pride, and for its rock art: the hills around are full of shelters with prehistoric paintings, and Nerpio is one of the most important centres for Levantine art in Spain. The Abrigo de la Fuente de Montañoz is one of these shelters, near a spring in the hills above the Taibilla river.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
about 151 km into the recorded legs you reach Abrigo de la fuente de montañoz I. Next is Guijarral.
4. Guijarral
Spain's largest protected area is the Sierras de Cazorla, Segura y Las Villas, and it spreads across a long stretch of wooded mountains in Jaén and Albacete. The Guijarral lies on its northern edge, in country close to Yeste, Segura de la Sierra and Orcera, where black pines and holm oaks cover steep slopes and rivers cut gorges between. Here, among rock walls, shelters preserve paintings, part of the Mediterranean Basin rock art listed by UNESCO in 1998, and the sites of the area, such as Zona 1 and the Collado de la Cruz, tell of hunting peoples who lived in these mountains long ago.