Cueva de los Cascarones and Letreros de los mártires
Plan this ride
Recorded distance
229 km
Riding-time estimate
6 h 25
Journey
Recorded itinerary
Distance and timing basis
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 Socovos it runs 229 km to Socovos; allow about 6 h 25 of riding. On the way it passes Cavidad V, Arroyo de la fuente de las Zorras, Letreros de los mártires and back through Arroyo de la fuente de las Zorras. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,400 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. The line favours views over speed.
Waypoint introductions and full write-ups
1. Cueva de los Cascarones
This is the country of the upper Segura, where Albacete and Murcia meet, and it is among the least visited corners of southern Spain. The river cuts through limestone sierras, with pine forests, reedy banks and small terraced fields where almond and olive trees grow, and the villages, Socovos and Férez among them, are small, white and quiet. The scale of the land is bigger than its population, and in summer the cicadas are the loudest thing you will hear.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Cueva de los Cascarones is where the day begins. Next is Cavidad V.
2. Cavidad V
Nerpio is about as far from anywhere as you can get in mainland Spain. This village of around sixteen hundred people sits in the Sierra del Segura, in the far south-west of Albacete province, close to the borders of Murcia and Andalusia, and the surrounding hills are dotted with shelters containing prehistoric paintings. The numbered sites around here, Cavidad V among them, are part of the UNESCO-listed Rock Art of the Mediterranean Basin, and the Nerpio area is one of the richest concentrations of Levantine art in Spain, with hunting scenes, archers and animals painted thousands of years ago.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Cavidad V comes up about 24 km into the recorded legs. Next is Arroyo de la fuente de las Zorras.
3. Arroyo de la fuente de las Zorras
The name means the stream of the foxes' spring, which is the kind of place name that only survives in country where people still walk. The ravines around Nerpio hold dozens of painted rock shelters, with Levantine and Schematic paintings of hunters, animals and symbols, and they form part of the UNESCO listing of rock art of the Mediterranean Basin on the Iberian Peninsula. Visits to many of them need to be arranged through the local interpretation centre.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
about 49 km into the recorded legs you reach Arroyo de la fuente de las Zorras. Next is Letreros de los mártires.
4. Letreros de los mártires
Out in the high north-east of Granada province, Huéscar feels a long way from the Alhambra and the beaches of the Costa Tropical. This is the altiplano, a broad upland of wheat fields, almond trees and pale badlands at around a thousand metres, ringed by mountains, with the great limestone hump of La Sagra rising to the north. The rock shelter called Letreros de los Mártires lies in this country, a dozen or so kilometres from the town.