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: planning record, not independently verified geometry.
Reading history stays on this device. My road watch requires a separate selection; opening it does not subscribe this ride.
Distances and riding times are planning figures. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
From Nerpio it runs 459 km to Nerpio; allow about 7 h 56 of riding. On the way it passes Cavidad V, Las Covachicas, Cavidad VI and Tenada de Cueva moreno. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,350 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available.
Some places are remote on the map and remote in the gut, and the country around the Cueva del Gitano is both. It lies in the Sierra de Segura on the southern fringe of Albacete province, in the municipality of Nerpio, where the mountains of Albacete, Murcia, Jaén and Granada all run into one another. This is one of the richest areas for prehistoric rock art in Spain, with dozens of painted shelters along the valley of the Taibilla river and its side ravines, and the Cueva del Gitano is one of the smaller sites in that dense cluster. The art is faint, the walk can be rough, and the setting does most of the talking.
Read the complete Cueva del Gitano write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Cueva del Gitano is where the day begins. Next is 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.
Read the complete Cavidad V write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Cavidad V comes up about 58 km into the recorded legs. Next is Las Covachicas.
The Sierra del Segura, in the far south of Albacete province, is a world of its own: deep valleys, rivers lined with poplars, terraces of olive and almond trees, and white villages that look more Andalusian than Castilian. Letur is one of the most beautiful, a village of Moorish origin built on a rock above a stream, with narrow alleys, arches and gardens watered by old irrigation channels. Las Covachicas, a group of shelters, lies in the hills nearby, between Letur, Socovos and Férez.
Read the complete Las Covachicas write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 116 km into the recorded legs you reach Las Covachicas. Next is Cavidad VI.
Nerpio is a village of sixteen hundred people at more than a thousand metres in south-west Albacete, and the area is among the richest in Spain for prehistoric painting. The shelter at Cavidad VI is one of dozens, in the Levantine tradition protected by UNESCO as part of the Mediterranean rock art of Spain, and the ride links it with a site called Las Cazuelas, the Cooking Pots, and a cave named for a Gypsy, Cueva del Gitano, a name that probably recalls a squatter or a shepherd rather than any famous event. The label Cavidad, meaning a cavity, tells you something about the people who numbered these places. They were archaeologists with a long list of holes in the rock.
Read the complete Cavidad VI write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Cavidad VI, about halfway. Next is Tenada de Cueva moreno.
A tenada is a farm shed for livestock, the kind of low stone building that marks old transhumance routes, and the cave that goes with it is a local hollow in the limestone near Letur and Socovos in the south of Albacete province. This is the dry, hilly outer edge of the Sierra del Segura, where the pine woods give way to open scrub and cereal fields, and the horizon is a series of pale ridges. The label also links to the Letreros de los Mártires, a set of painted marks in a nearby shelter, which hints at the density of prehistoric art in this district.
Read the complete Tenada de Cueva moreno write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Tenada de Cueva moreno sits at 230 km, about halfway. Next is back through Cavidad VI.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Cavidad VI write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Cavidad VI comes up about 291 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Las Covachicas.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Las Covachicas write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 349 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Las Covachicas. Next is back through Cavidad V.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Cavidad V write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Cavidad V, late in the day. Next is Cueva del Gitano.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Cueva del Gitano write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 459 km.
Cueva del Gitano → Cavidad V is 58 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Cavidad V → Las Covachicas is 58 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Las Covachicas → Cavidad VI is 58 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Cavidad VI → Tenada de Cueva moreno is 58 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Tenada de Cueva moreno → back through Cavidad VI is 58 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Cavidad VI → back through Las Covachicas is 58 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Las Covachicas → back through Cavidad V is 58 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Cavidad V → Cueva del Gitano is 58 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.