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.
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Distance and riding time are measured on the routed road. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
From Vistabella del Maestrazgo it runs 341 km to Vistabella del Maestrazgo; allow about 7 h 32 of riding. On the way it passes Castell de Villafamés, La Covassa del molinell, Cova alta del Llidoner and Cingle dels Tolls del Puntal. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,200 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. A steady touring day rather than a sprint.
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.
Cova de Gargán 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 42 km into the recorded legs. Next is La Covassa del molinell.
Benassal and Culla are mountain villages in the Alt Maestrat, in the interior of the province of Castelló, a region of limestone plateaus, deep gorges and stone walls that feels a world away from the beaches of the coast. La Covassa del Molinell, a large rock shelter near Benassal, is one of many in the Maestrat with prehistoric paintings. The region is one of the richest areas for Levantine rock art, with the famous shelters of the Valltorta gorge, near Tírig, just to the east.
Read the complete La Covassa del molinell write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 76 km into the recorded legs you reach La Covassa del molinell. Next is Cova alta del Llidoner.
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, about halfway. Next is Cingle dels Tolls del Puntal.
Cingle means a cliff in Valencian, and the Cingle dels Tolls del Puntal is one of the rocky bands that cut across the hills of northern Castellón, in the Maestrat region. The shelters in these cliffs hold paintings of the Levantine rock art tradition, red figures of archers, goats and deer, protected by UNESCO as part of the Mediterranean Basin group. The Valltorta gorge nearby is one of the richest concentrations of this art, and there is a museum in the village of Tírig that explains the painted shelters. The shelters themselves are fragile and often restricted.
Read the complete Cingle dels Tolls del Puntal write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Cingle dels Tolls del Puntal sits at 152 km, about halfway. Next is back through 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.
back through Cova alta del Llidoner comes up about 214 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through La Covassa del molinell.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete La Covassa del molinell write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 263 km into the recorded legs you reach back through La Covassa del molinell. 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 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.
The route ends here after 341 km.
Cova de Gargán → Castell de Villafamés is 42 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Castell de Villafamés → La Covassa del molinell is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
La Covassa del molinell → Cova alta del Llidoner is 44 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Cova alta del Llidoner → Cingle dels Tolls del Puntal is 46 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Cingle dels Tolls del Puntal → back through Cova alta del Llidoner is 48 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Cova alta del Llidoner → back through La Covassa del molinell is 49 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through La Covassa del molinell → back through Castell de Villafamés is 32 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Castell de Villafamés → Cova de Gargán is 44 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.