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 Artesa de Segre it runs 206 km to Artesa de Segre; allow about 3 h 50 of riding. The stops in between: Cova dels Vilasos o dels Vilars, Pintures Rupestres d'Alfés and back through Cova dels Vilasos o dels Vilars. The line favours views over speed.
Waypoint introductions and full write-ups
1. Antona I
In the Pre-Pyrenees of Lleida, the plain of Urgell ends and the land starts folding into dry, golden hills. Artesa de Segre, Camarasa and Cubells are small places along the edge of this country, where the Segre river and the Noguera Pallaresa bring water down from the mountains, and where reservoirs and gorges give the landscape its character. The Camarasa dam, built in the early twentieth century on the Noguera Pallaresa, is a big wall of concrete holding back a long, green-blue lake in a narrow valley.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Antona I is where the day begins. Next is Cova dels Vilasos o dels Vilars.
2. Cova dels Vilasos o dels Vilars
Os de Balaguer is a small village on the edge of the pre-Pyrenean hills in the Noguera district of Lleida, and the Cova dels Vilasos, also known as the Cova dels Vilars, lies just outside it. The site is one of the painted rock shelters of Catalonia counted within the Mediterranean rock art group protected by UNESCO, and its figures are small and reddish, drawn by people who lived from hunting and gathering in what was then a far wilder landscape. Like its neighbours it is protected and rarely dramatic at first sight; give your eyes a moment in the shade and the shapes begin to come out of the stone.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Cova dels Vilasos o dels Vilars comes up about 45 km into the recorded legs. Next is Pintures Rupestres d'Alfés.
3. Pintures Rupestres d'Alfés
South of Lleida the irrigated orchards give way abruptly to dry, open steppe, and the little village of Alfés sits on the edge of that change. The Pintures Rupestres d'Alfés are rock paintings in a small sandstone shelter near the village, schematic designs in red pigment, mostly abstract lines, dots and simplified figures, that belong to the later, more symbolic phase of prehistoric art in eastern Spain, and they are included in the UNESCO listing of Mediterranean Basin rock art. They are modest to look at, but there is something powerful about seeing marks left by people thousands of years ago in such an open, wind-swept place.