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.
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Distance and riding time are measured on the routed road. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
353 km from Ares del Maestre to Ares del Maestre, about 8 h 09 of riding. It goes by way of Cova de Gargán, Castell de Villafamés, La Covassa del molinell and Cova alta del Llidoner. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,200 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It suits an unhurried touring pace.
In Valencian, a cirerer is a cherry tree, and the name of El Cireral suggests an old cherry orchard or a place where wild cherries once grew. That fits the high country around Benassal, where the nights are cool and the fruit trees do well. The shelter lies about five kilometres from the town, in the dry hills of the Alt Maestrat, and carries painting in the Levantine tradition, protected by UNESCO as part of the rock art of the Mediterranean basin in Spain. The ride links it with a site called Calçaes del Matá, and with the Arenal de la Fonseca.
Read the complete El Cireral write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
El Cireral is where the day begins. Next is Cova de Gargán.
High in the interior of Castellón, where the coastal orange groves are long forgotten and the land climbs toward the Penyagolosa massif, the shelter known as Cova de Gargán sits in a country of limestone ledges, holm oak and dry-stone terraces. Vistabella del Maestrazgo is the nearest village, a handful of kilometres away on its high plateau, with Villahermosa del Río down in its valley to the other side and Lucena del Cid a little further south. It is quiet up here in a way that the coast never is.
Read the complete Cova de Gargán write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Cova de Gargán comes up about 53 km into the recorded legs. Next is Castell de Villafamés.
Villafamés announces itself from a long way off: a village of white and ochre houses stacked up a hill of reddish rock, with the remains of a castle crowning the top. It stands a little inland from the coast of Castellón, roughly between Borriol, Cabanes and the beach town of Benicàssim, close enough to the sea that you can smell salt on a westerly breeze turning, yet already in that rumpled hill country that leads up into the Maestrat.
Read the complete Castell de Villafamés write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 96 km into the recorded legs you reach Castell de Villafamés. Next is La Covassa del molinell.
Benassal and Culla are mountain villages in the Alt Maestrat, in the interior of the province of Castelló, a region of limestone plateaus, deep gorges and stone walls that feels a world away from the beaches of the coast. La Covassa del Molinell, a large rock shelter near Benassal, is one of many in the Maestrat with prehistoric paintings. The region is one of the richest areas for Levantine rock art, with the famous shelters of the Valltorta gorge, near Tírig, just to the east.
Read the complete La Covassa del molinell write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
La Covassa del molinell, about halfway. Next is Cova alta del Llidoner.
Most people come to this stretch of the Castellón coast for the beaches at Benicàssim and Oropesa, and they never look up at the dry, scrubby hills a few kilometres inland. Up there, among the pines, rosemary and limestone ledges near Cabanes, the Cova alta del Llidoner is one of the rock shelters with prehistoric paintings that belong to the World Heritage site of Levantine rock art. It is a quiet, unshowy place, more about the feel of the land than about anything you can photograph.
Read the complete Cova alta del Llidoner write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Cova alta del Llidoner sits at 147 km, about halfway. Next is back through La Covassa del molinell.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete La Covassa del molinell write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through La Covassa del molinell comes up about 223 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Castell de Villafamés.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Castell de Villafamés write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 255 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Castell de Villafamés. Next is back through Cova de Gargán.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Cova de Gargán write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Cova de Gargán, late in the day. Next is El Cireral.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete El Cireral write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 353 km.
El Cireral → Cova de Gargán is 53 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Cova de Gargán → Castell de Villafamés is 43 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Castell de Villafamés → La Covassa del molinell is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
La Covassa del molinell → Cova alta del Llidoner is 49 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Cova alta del Llidoner → back through La Covassa del molinell is 44 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through La Covassa del molinell → back through Castell de Villafamés is 32 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Castell de Villafamés → back through Cova de Gargán is 44 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Cova de Gargán → El Cireral is 53 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.