Abrigo del Barranco Hondo and Abrigo de los Arqueros Negros
Plan this ride
Recorded distance
376 km
Riding-time estimate
6 h 10
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 Castellote it runs 376 km to Castellote; allow about 6 h 10 of riding. The stops in between: Abrigo de los Trepadores, Abrigo de los Arqueros Negros and back through Abrigo de los Trepadores. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,200 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. The line favours views over speed.
Waypoint introductions and full write-ups
1. Abrigo del Barranco Hondo
Castellote is one of those villages in the Teruel Maestrazgo that seems to have been built by people who wanted to be left alone. Its houses pile up beneath a great rock wall topped by the ruins of a castle associated with the Knights Templar, and the Guadalope river winds below on its way into the Santolea reservoir. The Abrigo del Barranco Hondo, a painted rock shelter in a deep ravine outside the village, is part of the extensive collection of Levantine rock art scattered through these mountains, with small figures in red ochre that have survived on the stone for millennia.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Abrigo del Barranco Hondo is where the day begins. Next is Abrigo de los Trepadores.
2. Abrigo de los Trepadores
The Río Martín runs through the dry hills of Teruel province in northern Spain, and the villages along its banks, Alacón, Oliete and Muniesa among them, are tiny places that seem to belong to a calmer century. The Abrigo de los Trepadores is one of the rock shelters of the area, part of a cultural park that protects the paintings found in the cliffs and gorges of the valley. Many belong to the Levantine tradition, small red figures of hunters and animals, and others are schematic, simple signs and stick-like human forms, painted by later peoples. The paintings can be hard to find without a guide, and access is regulated, so plan ahead.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Abrigo de los Trepadores comes up about 80 km into the recorded legs. Next is Abrigo de los Arqueros Negros.
3. Abrigo de los Arqueros Negros
The prehistoric painters of eastern Spain had a thing for archers. Across hundreds of rock shelters from Catalonia to Andalusia, they painted small, dynamic human figures drawing bows, chasing deer and goats, sometimes fighting each other, and these scenes of the so-called Levantine style are part of the UNESCO listing of rock art of the Mediterranean Basin on the Iberian Peninsula. Shelters with names like the Abrigo de los Arqueros Negros, the shelter of the black archers, are scattered through the limestone hills of the province of Teruel and its neighbours in Aragon, often in remote ravines and protected by grilles.