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.
A 361 km round trip from Santillana - roughly 5 h 05 in the saddle. It goes by way of Monastère de Santo Toribio de Liébana, Tito Bustillo and back through Monastère de Santo Toribio de Liébana. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,300 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. A steady touring day rather than a sprint.
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For about 95 km this is Picos de Europa Loop, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
In 1879 a little girl lost interest in her father's digging and wandered further into a cave in Cantabria. She looked up and saw bulls on the ceiling. The father, Marcelino Sanz de Sautuola, a local landowner and amateur archaeologist, was digging in the floor of Altamira, a cave a hunter had stumbled on some years earlier. When he announced that the paintings were of the Ice Age, the experts of Europe laughed at him, and it was not until 1902, after similar paintings turned up in France, that the leading sceptic published a famous apology. Sautuola died long before that.
Read the complete Cave of Altamira and Paleolithic Cave Art write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Cave of Altamira and Paleolithic Cave Art is where the day begins. Next is Monastère de Santo Toribio de Liébana.
Liébana is a green bowl surrounded by mountains, a valley system in south-west Cantabria with the town of Potes at its centre and the limestone towers of the Picos de Europa rising to the north and west. On a hillside above Potes, among oak and chestnut woods, stands the monastery of Santo Toribio, one of the holy places of Christian Spain. It keeps the Lignum Crucis, said to be the largest surviving fragment of the True Cross, and for that reason it holds a jubilee year whenever the feast of Saint Toribio, the sixteenth of April, falls on a Sunday.
Read the complete Monastère de Santo Toribio de Liébana write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Monastère de Santo Toribio de Liébana comes up about 85 km into the recorded legs. Next is Tito Bustillo.
In 1968, a group of young cavers from Ribadesella found their way into a cave system beneath the Ardines hill, just outside the town, and stumbled upon an extraordinary gallery of Palaeolithic art: horses, deer and reindeer, painted in red and black, along with strange red symbols that some interpret as female figures. One of the group, Celestino Fernández Bustillo, known as Tito, died in a mountain accident a few days later, and the cave was named in his honour. Tito Bustillo is one of the most important painted caves in Europe, and it is part of the UNESCO listing of Cave of Altamira and Palaeolithic Cave Art of Northern Spain. Visits are limited in number and season to protect the art, and booking in advance is essential.
Read the complete Tito Bustillo write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 180 km into the recorded legs you reach Tito Bustillo. Next is back through Monastère de Santo Toribio de Liébana.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Monastère de Santo Toribio de Liébana write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Monastère de Santo Toribio de Liébana, late in the day. Next is Cave of Altamira and Paleolithic Cave Art.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Cave of Altamira and Paleolithic Cave Art write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Cave of Altamira and Paleolithic Cave Art. That is the ride.
Cave of Altamira and Paleolithic Cave Art → Monastère de Santo Toribio de Liébana is 85 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Monastère de Santo Toribio de Liébana → Tito Bustillo is 95 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Tito Bustillo → back through Monastère de Santo Toribio de Liébana is 94 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Monastère de Santo Toribio de Liébana → Cave of Altamira and Paleolithic Cave Art is 86 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.