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.
102 km from Vall de Gallinera to Vall de Gallinera, about 2 h 24 of riding. On the way it passes Barraac de la Palla, Penya Escrita and back through Barraac de la Palla. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Waypoint introductions and full write-ups
1. Cova Jeroni
Cova Jeroni belongs to that quiet tangle of valleys behind Pego and Dénia where the Marina Alta hides its oldest stories. The shelters in this part of Alicante, along the ravines of Famorca, Ebo and Gallinera, carry some of the finest prehistoric art in eastern Spain, and they are listed together with hundreds of others as the rock art of the Mediterranean Basin. Do not expect a visitor centre and a car park; expect a dirt track, a short walk, a rock overhang and a few ochre figures that reward a long look.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Cova Jeroni is where the day begins. Next is Barraac de la Palla.
2. Barraac de la Palla
Tormos and Sagra are tiny villages at the foot of the mountains in the north of Alicante province, at the point where the plain of the Marina Alta meets the hills. They are surrounded by orange groves and orchards, with the mountains of the Vall de Laguar and the Serra del Migdia rising steeply behind. The Barranc de la Palla, the ravine of the straw, cuts into the hills near Tormos, close also to Orba and the town of Pego.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Barraac de la Palla comes up about 22 km into the recorded legs. Next is Penya Escrita.
3. Penya Escrita
In the folded limestone hills behind the Costa Blanca, far enough inland that the resorts feel like another country, a rock shelter called Penya Escrita holds prehistoric paintings. The name means something like the written rock, which is what the people of Tàrbena and Bolulla called it long before archaeologists arrived. The figures belong to the rock art of the Mediterranean Basin of the Iberian Peninsula, a UNESCO site made up of hundreds of shelters scattered from Catalonia down to Andalusia, painted by hunter-gatherers and early farmers thousands of years ago. They are small, faded and easy to miss, and they are best appreciated with patience rather than expectation.