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 Nerpio it runs 223 km to Nerpio; allow about 5 h 31 of riding. On the way it passes Fuente Serrano I, La Risca I, Cueva de las Palamas and back through La Risca I. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,450 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Waypoint introductions and full write-ups
1. Abrigo de las Cañadas I
High up in the Sierra del Segura, where the province of Albacete meets Granada and Jaén, the village of Nerpio sits at around eleven hundred metres in a country of oak, pine and bare limestone. The Abrigo de las Cañadas, a rock shelter, lies about twelve kilometres from the village among its dry gullies, in one of the most thinly settled corners of Castilla-La Mancha.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Abrigo de las Cañadas I is where the day begins. Next is Fuente Serrano I.
2. Fuente Serrano I
Nerpio is the kind of place that makes you check the map twice. It sits at the head of the Taibilla valley in the far south-west of Albacete province, on a high plateau more than a kilometre above sea level, in the Sierra de Segura, surrounded by mountains and reachable only by long and winding roads. The village is small, with about 1,600 people, and the countryside around it is a mix of cherry orchards, almond groves, pasture and pine forest, with limestone crags and the cold, clear water of the Taibilla river cutting through the valley floor.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Fuente Serrano I comes up about 38 km into the recorded legs. Next is La Risca I.
3. La Risca I
Moratalla is a hill town that spills down a slope beneath its castle in the north-west of Murcia, a maze of steep, narrow streets, whitewashed houses and stairways. Around it lies a vast municipality of mountains, forests and valleys, and in the valley of Benizar, near the Río Benamor, is La Risca, a group of painted shelters that form part of the World Heritage Site of Rock Art of the Mediterranean Basin. The paintings include human figures and animals, typical of the Levantine style, small and faded but full of life.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
about 61 km into the recorded legs you reach La Risca I. Next is Cueva de las Palamas.
4. Cueva de las Palamas
Cehegín, in the north-west of the Murcia region, is a town of two faces: a modern lower town, and an old town on a hill, with steep streets, noble houses and churches, declared a historic site. The Cueva de las Palomas, the cave of the doves, lies on the edge of the town, less than a kilometre from the centre, with the larger town of Caravaca de la Cruz about five kilometres away.