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.
From Zestoa it runs 315 km to Zestoa; allow about 4 h 18 of riding. The stops in between: Cathédrale de Saint Jacques Apôtre, La Garma and back through Cathédrale de Saint Jacques Apôtre. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
In 1969 two young men exploring a hillside above the Sastarrain valley near Zestoa crawled into a narrow opening and found themselves in a gallery of painted horses. Ekain is one of the finest Palaeolithic painted caves in Europe, its walls covered with images of horses, bison and other animals made some fourteen thousand years ago with remarkable skill. The horses in particular are famous, drawn with shaggy manes and round bellies, so lively that they seem about to move.
Read the complete Ekain write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Ekain is where the day begins. Next is Cathédrale de Saint Jacques Apôtre.
Down in the Casco Viejo of Bilbao, where the old streets run in a tight grid beside the Nervión, the cathedral of Santiago stands at the heart of the Siete Calles, the seven original streets of the medieval town. It is a Gothic church, rebuilt after a fire in the sixteenth century, with a neo-Gothic façade and spire added later, and it sits so snugly among the tall houses that you often see it only when you are standing right in front of it.
Read the complete Cathédrale de Saint Jacques Apôtre write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Cathédrale de Saint Jacques Apôtre comes up about 76 km into the recorded legs. 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.
about 156 km into the recorded legs you reach La Garma. Next is back through Cathédrale de Saint Jacques Apôtre.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Cathédrale de Saint Jacques Apôtre write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Cathédrale de Saint Jacques Apôtre, late in the day. Next is Ekain.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Ekain write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Ekain. That is the ride.
Ekain → Cathédrale de Saint Jacques Apôtre is 76 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Cathédrale de Saint Jacques Apôtre → La Garma is 80 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
La Garma → back through Cathédrale de Saint Jacques Apôtre is 83 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Cathédrale de Saint Jacques Apôtre → Ekain is 76 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.