Fajana de Pera I and Abrigo de Santa Eulaliade la Peña
Plan this ride
Recorded distance
261 km
Riding-time estimate
4 h 31
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: 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.
A 261 km round trip from Bárcabo - roughly 4 h 31 in the saddle. It goes by way of Cueva de Pacencia, Abrigo de Santa Eulaliade la Peña and back through Cueva de Pacencia. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,050 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. The line favours views over speed.
Waypoint introductions and full write-ups
1. Fajana de Pera I
If you want to understand the cooking of Alto Aragón, begin with what grows on a dry, stony hillside: olives, almonds, borage, wild herbs, and what can be grazed there, lamb above all. Fajana de Pera I, a painted shelter some five kilometres from Alquézar, belongs to the same hill country, and the shelters of the Vero valley, which UNESCO included in the Mediterranean Basin rock art listing of 1998, are a reminder that people have been feeding themselves from this land for a very long time.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Fajana de Pera I is where the day begins. Next is Cueva de Pacencia.
2. Cueva de Pacencia
The Sierra de Guara is the first big wrinkle of the Pyrenees north of Huesca, a block of limestone sliced into deep canyons by rivers like the Vero, the Alcanadre and the Mascún, and the Cueva de Pacencia sits in that broken country. The shelters along the Vero hold prehistoric paintings in several styles, from the lively Levantine hunters to much more abstract schematic signs, and they are part of the UNESCO Rock Art of the Mediterranean Basin. The area is managed as the Río Vero Cultural Park, with an interpretation centre in Colungo and guided visits to the best-preserved shelters, which is the sensible way to see them.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Cueva de Pacencia comes up about 43 km into the recorded legs. Next is Abrigo de Santa Eulaliade la Peña.
3. Abrigo de Santa Eulaliade la Peña
Just north of Huesca, where the flat cereal land of the Hoya suddenly rears up into the first limestone walls of the Pre-Pyrenees, lies the little village of Nueno and, above it, the rock shelter named after Santa Eulalia de la Peña. This is the southern edge of the Sierra de Guara country, a landscape of gorges, conglomerate cliffs and scrub where griffon vultures ride the thermals and the light comes hard off pale stone.