Corral de la Gascona and Roc del Rumbau o Roca dels moros
Plan this ride
Recorded distance
474 km
Riding-time estimate
8 h 04
Journey
Recorded itinerary
Distance and timing basis
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 474 km round trip from Alquézar - roughly 8 h 04 in the saddle. The stops in between: El Remosillo, Les Coves, Cova del Tabac and Roc del Rumbau o Roca dels moros. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,200 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. Corral de la Gascona
Alquézar is one of the most dramatic villages in Spain: a cluster of ochre houses piled on a rocky spur above the canyon of the Vero river, crowned by a castle and a collegiate church built on the site of a Moorish fortress. It lies at the southern edge of the Sierra de Guara, a limestone range in Aragon cut by deep canyons, and the area is famous across Europe for canyoning, with people abseiling, jumping and swimming through the narrow gorges in summer. The Corral de la Gascona is one of the rock-art sites in the Vero canyon and its surroundings, part of the UNESCO-listed rock art of the Mediterranean Basin.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Corral de la Gascona 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 47 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 93 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.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Cova del Tabac, about halfway. Next is Roc del Rumbau o Roca dels moros.
5. Roc del Rumbau o Roca dels moros
Where the Segre comes down from the Pyrenees towards the plains of Lleida, it squeezes through a gap at Oliana, held back by a dam and a reservoir that fills the valley above. On the slopes nearby, Roc del Rumbau, also called the Roca dels Moros, the Moors' rock, is a shelter with prehistoric paintings, one of the Catalan sites of the World Heritage Site of Rock Art of the Mediterranean Basin. The name is a common one in Catalonia and Spain: local people often attributed anything ancient and mysterious to the Moors.