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.
389 km from Aldeaquemada to Aldeaquemada, about 5 h 49 of riding. On the way it passes Renaissance Monumental Ensembles of Úbeda, Cueva del Encajero and back through Renaissance Monumental Ensembles of Úbeda. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 800 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. A steady touring day rather than a sprint.
Sierra Morena is the long, dark range that separates the plains of La Mancha from the valley of the Guadalquivir, and the high-road gateway between them is the gorge of Despeñaperros, a few kilometres to the east of Aldeaquemada. The name means something like the pass where dogs are thrown off the cliff, which tells you how the Castilians felt about it. The Cueva de Apolinario is a rock shelter in these hills, and belongs to the painted shelters of the Sierra Morena, with figures that experts date back several thousand years. The area also holds the rock art of the Mediterranean Basin, as protected by UNESCO.
Read the complete Cueva de Apolinario write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Cueva de Apolinario is where the day begins. Next is Renaissance Monumental Ensembles of Úbeda.
Úbeda stands on a ridge above an ocean of olive trees. In every direction, the province of Jaén rolls away in silver-green rows, millions of trees planted in geometric lines up to the horizon, and on this sea floats a town of honey-coloured stone that looks as if it had been lifted from Florence. In the sixteenth century, powerful local families who served the Spanish crown, above all Francisco de los Cobos, secretary to Emperor Charles V, poured their wealth into palaces and churches here, and the architect Andrés de Vandelvira gave them a Renaissance style of rare purity. Úbeda and its smaller neighbour Baeza were inscribed together on the UNESCO list in 2003.
Read the complete Renaissance Monumental Ensembles of Úbeda write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Renaissance Monumental Ensembles of Úbeda comes up about 111 km into the recorded legs. Next is Cueva del Encajero.
Olives, and then more olives. Riding west out of Jaén towards Torredonjimeno you cross one of the most single-minded agricultural landscapes in Europe, a rolling grid of grey-green trees running over every hill to the horizon, broken only by white farmhouses and the occasional oil mill. Somewhere among these low hills near Villardompardo, the Cueva del Encajero is a small rock shelter with traces of prehistoric painting, one of the many scattered sites that make up the World Heritage listing of rock art in Spain's Mediterranean basin.
Read the complete Cueva del Encajero write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 202 km into the recorded legs you reach Cueva del Encajero. Next is back through Renaissance Monumental Ensembles of Úbeda.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Renaissance Monumental Ensembles of Úbeda write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Renaissance Monumental Ensembles of Úbeda, late in the day. Next is Cueva de Apolinario.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Cueva de Apolinario write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Cueva de Apolinario. That is the ride.
Cueva de Apolinario → Renaissance Monumental Ensembles of Úbeda is 111 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Renaissance Monumental Ensembles of Úbeda → Cueva del Encajero is 91 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Cueva del Encajero → back through Renaissance Monumental Ensembles of Úbeda is 79 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Renaissance Monumental Ensembles of Úbeda → Cueva de Apolinario is 109 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.