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 311 km round trip from Alquézar - roughly 5 h 14 in the saddle. On the way it passes El Remosillo, Les Coves, Cova del Tabac and back through Les Coves. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,000 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. Artica de Campo
Artica is the kind of small place name that appears on only the most detailed maps, and Artica de Campo, one and a half kilometres from Alquézar, is a field or small farm on the slope above the village. Its shelter is the closest after Cueva Palomera to the centre of Alquézar, and it belongs to the rock art of the Vero listed by UNESCO in 1998. The ride that features it also links to Navarra's beech forests at Aztaparreta, a long way to the west in the Pyrenees, which are a lovely place in October.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Artica de Campo is where the day begins. Next is El Remosillo.
2. El Remosillo
If you ride north from Barbastro toward Graus, the Ésera river eventually forces its way through a ridge of limestone, and the result is the Congosto de Olvena, a short, deep gorge with the road squeezed between rock and water. Up on the cliffs around here are rock shelters with prehistoric paintings, and El Remosillo is one of the best known in this corner of Aragón, between Estadilla, Graus and Fonz.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
El Remosillo comes up about 44 km into the recorded legs. Next is Les Coves.
3. Les Coves
The western edge of Catalonia, around Lleida, is fruit country. Irrigation canals bring water from the Pyrenean rivers to a broad, flat plain of orchards growing apples, pears and peaches, laid out in neat lines that stretch to the horizon. Les Coves lies in this area, close to the Aragonese border, between Alfarràs, Albelda and Algerri, where the valley of the Noguera Ribagorçana spills out of the hills and onto the plain.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
about 90 km into the recorded legs you reach Les Coves. Next is Cova del Tabac.
4. Cova del Tabac
Above the village of Camarasa, where the Segre comes out of the pre-Pyrenean hills onto the plain of Lleida, a cave in the limestone holds some of the most interesting rock paintings in Catalonia. The Cova del Tabac, the tobacco cave, is a wide shelter with schematic paintings, simplified human figures, animals and symbols in red, and it is one of the sites included in the UNESCO listing of Mediterranean rock art on the Iberian Peninsula. A short walk leads up from the road to the shelter, which also offers a fine view over the valley, and on a clear day the Pyrenees rise white on the northern horizon.