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 350 km to Nerpio; allow about 6 h 53 of riding. On the way it passes Andragulla I, Abrigo del Pozo III, Abrigo de los Cortijos and Cueva del Peliciego. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,400 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 del Ídolo
Shelters collect names the way villages collect nicknames. The Abrigo del Ídolo lies barely a kilometre and a half from Nerpio, and it carries the name of a figure that someone once thought looked like an idol, which tells you less about the figure than about the person who named it. Across the district you will find shelters called after mills, springs, farms and the families who worked them, and the whole collection reads like a gazetteer of the people who walked these hills before the archaeologists arrived.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Abrigo del Ídolo is where the day begins. Next is Andragulla I.
2. Andragulla I
In the far north-west corner of the Region of Murcia, where the land climbs towards the mountains of Albacete and Jaén, lies Moratalla, a town of whitewashed houses piled up a hillside beneath a castle tower. Its countryside is surprisingly wild for Murcia: pine forests, rivers, gorges and limestone ridges, some of the greenest land in a famously dry region. The rock shelter of Andragulla is one of many painted overhangs scattered through these hills, part of the Levantine rock art sites inscribed together by UNESCO. Many are protected behind fences and need a guide; the tourist office in Moratalla can advise.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Andragulla I comes up about 34 km into the recorded legs. Next is Abrigo del Pozo III.
3. Abrigo del Pozo III
The Segura river cuts through the north-west of Murcia in a series of gorges and green oases, and near Calasparra its banks hold a surprising treasure. The Abrigo del Pozo shelters, of which this is the third, contain prehistoric paintings in the Levantine style, small human and animal figures in red ochre that form part of the World Heritage rock art of the Mediterranean arc. The shelters are fragile and generally protected, often visited only with a guide, so check with the local tourist office before you count on seeing them.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
about 84 km into the recorded legs you reach Abrigo del Pozo III. Next is Abrigo de los Cortijos.
4. Abrigo de los Cortijos
Hellín is a town in the south-east of Albacete province, on the edge of the dry plains of La Mancha, where the landscape breaks into hills and ravines on its way down to the Segura river. Its old town climbs a hill crowned by a castle, and its streets are lined with houses from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The Abrigo de los Cortijos lies in the hills about nine kilometres from the town, toward Albatana and Tobarra.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Abrigo de los Cortijos, about halfway. Next is Cueva del Peliciego.
5. Cueva del Peliciego
Jumilla is wine. This town in the north of Murcia sits in a high, dry valley surrounded by bare mountains, and its vineyards, planted with the Monastrell grape, produce powerful red wines under the Jumilla designation of origin, one of the oldest in Spain. The Cueva del Peliciego, a rock shelter in the hills near the town, holds prehistoric paintings in the Levantine style, and it has been known since the early twentieth century, when it was one of the first rock art sites studied in the region.