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 Oropesa del Mar it runs 258 km to Oropesa del Mar; allow about 5 h 55 of riding. The stops in between: Castell de Villafamés, Cova de Gargán, La Covassa and molí Darrer- Abric I. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,200 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available.
Most people come to this stretch of the Castellón coast for the beaches at Benicàssim and Oropesa, and they never look up at the dry, scrubby hills a few kilometres inland. Up there, among the pines, rosemary and limestone ledges near Cabanes, the Cova alta del Llidoner is one of the rock shelters with prehistoric paintings that belong to the World Heritage site of Levantine rock art. It is a quiet, unshowy place, more about the feel of the land than about anything you can photograph.
Read the complete Cova alta del Llidoner write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Cova alta del Llidoner is where the day begins. Next is Castell de Villafamés.
Villafamés announces itself from a long way off: a village of white and ochre houses stacked up a hill of reddish rock, with the remains of a castle crowning the top. It stands a little inland from the coast of Castellón, roughly between Borriol, Cabanes and the beach town of Benicàssim, close enough to the sea that you can smell salt on a westerly breeze turning, yet already in that rumpled hill country that leads up into the Maestrat.
Read the complete Castell de Villafamés write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Castell de Villafamés comes up about 22 km into the recorded legs. Next is Cova de Gargán.
High in the interior of Castellón, where the coastal orange groves are long forgotten and the land climbs toward the Penyagolosa massif, the shelter known as Cova de Gargán sits in a country of limestone ledges, holm oak and dry-stone terraces. Vistabella del Maestrazgo is the nearest village, a handful of kilometres away on its high plateau, with Villahermosa del Río down in its valley to the other side and Lucena del Cid a little further south. It is quiet up here in a way that the coast never is.
Read the complete Cova de Gargán write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 65 km into the recorded legs you reach Cova de Gargán. Next is La Covassa.
Culla sits on a narrow rocky crest in the Alt Maestrat, the inland highlands of Castellón, its houses wrapped around the remains of a castle that once controlled a large swathe of these mountains. The Knights Templar held it in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, and the village still has the feel of a lookout, with views in every direction over terraced slopes, stone walls and empty ridges. La Covassa, just below the village, is one of the many rock shelters in this part of Valencia that hold prehistoric paintings, part of the Mediterranean rock art group that UNESCO protects across eastern Spain.
Read the complete La Covassa write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
La Covassa, about halfway. Next is molí Darrer- Abric I.
The Alt Maestrat is the high, rugged interior of Castellón province, a country of limestone plateaus, deep ravines and stone villages perched on ridges, and it is crossed by a web of dry-stone walls that farmers have been building and rebuilding for centuries. Near the villages of Benassal, Catí and Villafranca del Cid, under a rock overhang beside an old mill site, the shelter called Molí Darrer holds prehistoric paintings, part of the scattered Levantine rock art that UNESCO inscribed as one site across eastern Spain.
Read the complete molí Darrer- Abric I write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
molí Darrer- Abric I sits at 93 km, about halfway. Next is back through La Covassa.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete La Covassa write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through La Covassa comes up about 154 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Cova de Gargán.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Cova de Gargán write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 194 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Cova de Gargán. Next is back through Castell de Villafamés.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Castell de Villafamés write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Castell de Villafamés, late in the day. Next is Cova alta del Llidoner.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Cova alta del Llidoner write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 258 km.
Cova alta del Llidoner → Castell de Villafamés is 22 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Castell de Villafamés → Cova de Gargán is 43 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Cova de Gargán → La Covassa is 40 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
La Covassa → molí Darrer- Abric I is 25 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
molí Darrer- Abric I → back through La Covassa is 24 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through La Covassa → back through Cova de Gargán is 40 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Cova de Gargán → back through Castell de Villafamés is 43 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Castell de Villafamés → Cova alta del Llidoner is 22 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.