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.
A 221 km round trip from Quesada - roughly 6 h 22 in the saddle. The stops in between: Úbeda, Cerro de la Caldera and back through Úbeda. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,050 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. The line favours views over speed.
Waypoint introductions and full write-ups
1. Abrigo del Cerro Vitar
Quesada is an olive town, and the hills around it are a sea of silver-green trees running up to the foot of the Cazorla ranges. Cerro Vitar rises just over three kilometres from the town, a low rocky hill on the edge of the Sierra de Quesada, where the groves end and the limestone begins. The shelter that bears its name is one of several in the district that carry prehistoric paintings, part of the Mediterranean Basin rock art that UNESCO listed in 1998.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Abrigo del Cerro Vitar is where the day begins. Next is Úbeda.
2. Úbeda
In the middle of an ocean of olive trees, Úbeda rises on a ridge like a Renaissance city that took a wrong turn on its way to Florence. This town in the province of Jaén, along with its neighbour Baeza, was listed by UNESCO in 2003 for its sixteenth-century architecture, much of it the work of Andrés de Vandelvira, who built palaces, churches and chapels for wealthy noble families and royal officials. The Plaza Vázquez de Molina is the showpiece, a harmonious square lined with palaces and the extraordinary Sacra Capilla del Salvador, a funerary chapel built for Francisco de los Cobos, secretary to Emperor Charles V.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Úbeda comes up about 48 km into the recorded legs. Next is Cerro de la Caldera.
3. Cerro de la Caldera
The Sierra Morena marks the end of Andalusia, the hilly rampart that the old road from Madrid had to cross before dropping into the Guadalquivir lowlands. Cerro de la Caldera, a hill near Aldeaquemada in the north-east of Jaén province, sits in the heart of this frontier, in a quiet landscape of holm oaks, cork oaks, rockrose scrub and sandstone outcrops. Rock shelters in these hills hold schematic and Levantine paintings, and the area is part of the wider World Heritage listing of Iberian rock art.