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.
390 km from Ramales de la Victoria to Ramales de la Victoria, about 6 h 25 of riding. It goes by way of La Garma, Monte Castillo - El Castillo, Chemin de la Liébana and Monastère de Santo Toribio de Liébana. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,300 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Covalanas is known as the cave of the red deer. Its walls carry red ochre paintings of hinds, drawn in a distinctive dotted technique, and they are among the finest Palaeolithic paintings in the Cantabrian region. The cave sits on a steep, wooded hillside above Ramales de la Victoria, in eastern Cantabria, and it was one of the first painted caves to be recognised in Spain, in the early twentieth century. It is part of the UNESCO-listed Cave of Altamira and Palaeolithic Cave Art of Northern Spain, and visits are limited to small groups, so booking ahead is advisable.
Read the complete Covalanas write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Covalanas is where the day begins. Next is La Garma.
La Garma is a low limestone hill a few kilometres inland from the Bay of Santander, green with meadows and oak scrub, the sort of rounded Cantabrian hump you might ride past without a second glance. Inside it lies one of the most important prehistoric caves in Europe. Found by chance in the 1990s, the cave of La Garma contains not just paintings but preserved living floors from the Palaeolithic: hearths, bones, tools and the outlines of shelters left exactly as they were when a rockfall sealed the entrance thousands of years ago. It forms part of the UNESCO site of the Cave of Altamira and Palaeolithic Cave Art of Northern Spain.
Read the complete La Garma write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
La Garma comes up about 44 km into the recorded legs. Next is Monte Castillo - El Castillo.
Some of the oldest paintings in Europe sit in a hill above a village best known for its hot springs. The cave of El Castillo opens in the flank of Monte Castillo, right above Puente Viesgo in the Pas valley of Cantabria, and inside it are hand stencils and a red disc that scientists dated, in 2012, to more than forty thousand years ago. That makes them contenders for the oldest cave art known on the continent, and possibly older than any made by modern humans, since Neanderthals were around at the time. UNESCO lists the Cantabrian caves, and a visit means a guided group entering in small numbers, so book ahead and expect limits on the day.
Read the complete Monte Castillo - El Castillo write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 80 km into the recorded legs you reach Monte Castillo - El Castillo. Next is Chemin de la Liébana.
San Vicente de la Barquera is where the Camino Lebaniego begins, the old pilgrim route that leaves the Cantabrian coast and climbs south into the mountains of Liébana to the monastery of Santo Toribio. The town sits on a pair of estuaries, with a long medieval bridge carrying the road across the water, a castle and the Gothic church of Santa María above the harbour, and on clear days the snowy peaks of the Picos de Europa rising behind the marshes like a stage set.
Read the complete Chemin de la Liébana write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Chemin de la Liébana, about halfway. 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 sits at 169 km, about halfway. Next is back through Chemin de la Liébana.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Chemin de la Liébana write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Chemin de la Liébana comes up about 260 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Monte Castillo - El Castillo.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Monte Castillo - El Castillo write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 309 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Monte Castillo - El Castillo. Next is back through La Garma.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete La Garma write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through La Garma, late in the day. Next is Covalanas.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Covalanas write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 390 km.
Covalanas → La Garma is 44 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
La Garma → Monte Castillo - El Castillo is 36 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Monte Castillo - El Castillo → Chemin de la Liébana is 51 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Chemin de la Liébana → Monastère de Santo Toribio de Liébana is 64 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Monastère de Santo Toribio de Liébana → back through Chemin de la Liébana is 65 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Chemin de la Liébana → back through Monte Castillo - El Castillo is 49 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Monte Castillo - El Castillo → back through La Garma is 38 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through La Garma → Covalanas is 44 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.