CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
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 426 km to Nerpio; allow about 9 h 13 of riding. The stops in between: Tenada de Cueva moreno, Cueva del Niño, Cavidad II 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.
Nerpio is about as far from anywhere as Spain gets. The village sits in the southern corner of the province of Albacete, where the Sierra de Segura and the mountains of Murcia and Granada meet, in a high valley cut by the Taibilla river. Around it, in the ravines and rock walls, are some of the most important prehistoric painted shelters in the country, and the Abrigo de Jutia is one of them. The Nerpio sites belong to the UNESCO-listed rock art of the Mediterranean Basin, and several of them, including the famous shelters of the Solana de las Covachas, show hunters, archers and animals painted in the Levantine style. Guided visits are organised from the village; ask locally about access and opening times, because the sites are protected and not all are open.
Read the complete Albrigo de Jutia I write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Albrigo de Jutia I is where the day begins. Next is Tenada de Cueva moreno.
A tenada is a farm shed for livestock, the kind of low stone building that marks old transhumance routes, and the cave that goes with it is a local hollow in the limestone near Letur and Socovos in the south of Albacete province. This is the dry, hilly outer edge of the Sierra del Segura, where the pine woods give way to open scrub and cereal fields, and the horizon is a series of pale ridges. The label also links to the Letreros de los Mártires, a set of painted marks in a nearby shelter, which hints at the density of prehistoric art in this district.
Read the complete Tenada de Cueva moreno write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Tenada de Cueva moreno comes up about 47 km into the recorded legs. Next is Cueva del Niño.
Ayna is a village of white houses clinging to the walls of a deep gorge carved by the Mundo river, in the Sierra de Alcaraz in the southwest of Albacete province. Its setting is so dramatic that it is sometimes called the Little Switzerland of La Mancha, and it was the backdrop for the cult Spanish film Amanece, que no es poco, a surreal comedy shot here in the late 1980s. A few kilometres away, in a rocky ravine, the Cueva del Niño holds something rare for this part of Spain: Palaeolithic paintings of deer, ibex and horses, much older than the Levantine figures painted later on the same walls. It is part of the UNESCO listing of Rock Art of the Mediterranean Basin on the Iberian Peninsula, and access is restricted to protect the paintings.
Read the complete Cueva del Niño write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 113 km into the recorded legs you reach Cueva del Niño. Next is Cavidad II.
South of Hellín the land opens into the dry, high steppe of southern Albacete, a country of esparto grass, almond terraces and bare limestone ridges, and it is in these ridges that the small painted cavities of the area hide. Cavidad II is one of them, a modest hollow in the rock with prehistoric pigment on its walls, part of a dense scatter of rock art sites around the Minateda area that archaeologists have studied for more than a century. Like most of the Levantine sites it is fragile and frequently protected by a grille, so it rewards patience and imagination more than a quick photograph.
Read the complete Cavidad II write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Cavidad II, about halfway. Next is 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.
Read the complete Cueva del Peliciego write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Cueva del Peliciego sits at 178 km, about halfway. Next is back through Cavidad II.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Cavidad II write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Cavidad II comes up about 248 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Cueva del Niño.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Cueva del Niño write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 313 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Cueva del Niño. Next is back through Tenada de Cueva moreno.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Tenada de Cueva moreno write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Tenada de Cueva moreno, late in the day. Next is Albrigo de Jutia I.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Albrigo de Jutia I write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 426 km.
Albrigo de Jutia I → Tenada de Cueva moreno is 47 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Tenada de Cueva moreno → Cueva del Niño is 66 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Cueva del Niño → Cavidad II is 65 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Cavidad II → Cueva del Peliciego is 35 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Cueva del Peliciego → back through Cavidad II is 35 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Cavidad II → back through Cueva del Niño is 65 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Cueva del Niño → back through Tenada de Cueva moreno is 66 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Tenada de Cueva moreno → Albrigo de Jutia I is 47 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.