Abrigo de la Ermita de San Urbez and Abrigo de Santa Eulaliade la Peña
Plan this ride
Recorded distance
481 km
Riding-time estimate
9 h 46
Journey
Recorded itinerary
Distance and timing basis
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: producer-declared routed record.
Reading history stays on this device. My road watch requires a separate selection; opening it does not subscribe this ride.
Distance and riding time are measured on the routed road. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
From Puértolas it runs 481 km to Puértolas; allow about 9 h 46 of riding. It goes by way of Cueva Peña Miel I, El Remosillo, Corral de la Gascona and Abrigo de Santa Eulaliade la Peña. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,750 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It suits an unhurried touring pace.
Scenic road chapters
Pyrenees N260 Route
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For about 52 km this is Pyrenees N260 Route, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
Chapter facts
Length
52 km
Named road
Pyrenees N260 Route
Waypoint introductions and full write-ups
1. Abrigo de la Ermita de San Urbez
The Añisclo canyon is one of the deepest and narrowest in the Spanish Pyrenees, a cleft in the limestone of the Ordesa and Monte Perdido National Park, and the road that runs through its lower section is one of the most remarkable in Aragon. At its southern end, beside an old stone bridge over the Bellós river, stands the hermitage of San Úrbez, built half into the cliff, with a cave behind it where tradition says the saint lived as a hermit. Close by, rock shelters hold traces of prehistoric painting.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Abrigo de la Ermita de San Urbez is where the day begins. Next is Cueva Peña Miel I.
2. Cueva Peña Miel I
The Sierra de Guara, in the province of Huesca, is a limestone range riddled with canyons, and the river Vero cuts one of the most beautiful of them, a deep, narrow gorge of grey and ochre cliffs where vultures nest and the water runs clear over pale stones. Along its walls, prehistoric people left paintings in dozens of rock shelters, and the Cueva Peña Miel I is one of them, part of the UNESCO listing of rock art of the Mediterranean Basin. The Río Vero Cultural Park protects the area, with an interpretation centre in Colungo and guided visits to some of the shelters.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Cueva Peña Miel I comes up about 52 km into the recorded legs. Next is El Remosillo.
3. El Remosillo
If you ride north from Barbastro toward Graus, the Ésera river eventually forces its way through a ridge of limestone, and the result is the Congosto de Olvena, a short, deep gorge with the road squeezed between rock and water. Up on the cliffs around here are rock shelters with prehistoric paintings, and El Remosillo is one of the best known in this corner of Aragón, between Estadilla, Graus and Fonz.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
about 111 km into the recorded legs you reach El Remosillo. Next is Corral de la Gascona.
4. Corral de la Gascona
Alquézar is one of the most dramatic villages in Spain: a cluster of ochre houses piled on a rocky spur above the canyon of the Vero river, crowned by a castle and a collegiate church built on the site of a Moorish fortress. It lies at the southern edge of the Sierra de Guara, a limestone range in Aragon cut by deep canyons, and the area is famous across Europe for canyoning, with people abseiling, jumping and swimming through the narrow gorges in summer. The Corral de la Gascona is one of the rock-art sites in the Vero canyon and its surroundings, part of the UNESCO-listed rock art of the Mediterranean Basin.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Corral de la Gascona, about halfway. Next is Abrigo de Santa Eulaliade la Peña.
5. Abrigo de Santa Eulaliade la Peña
Just north of Huesca, where the flat cereal land of the Hoya suddenly rears up into the first limestone walls of the Pre-Pyrenees, lies the little village of Nueno and, above it, the rock shelter named after Santa Eulalia de la Peña. This is the southern edge of the Sierra de Guara country, a landscape of gorges, conglomerate cliffs and scrub where griffon vultures ride the thermals and the light comes hard off pale stone.