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 Elvas it runs 330 km to Elvas; allow about 4 h 13 of riding. It goes by way of Proserpina Dam, Old Town of Cáceres and back through Proserpina Dam. It crosses from Portugal into Spain - carry ID and check the toll rules. A steady touring day rather than a sprint.
Speed drops and stays down. Park rather than crawl through. 76 km through ground somebody thought worth listing. The road passes it rather than bypassing it.
The Fort of Graca sits on a hill north of Elvas, like a stone crown, and it was built after a lesson. In the 1750s and 1760s, Europe had been rocked by the Seven Years War, and Portugal, which had been dragged into conflict with Spain, found that its border defences were out of date. The government called in a foreign expert, the Count of Lippe, a German soldier of fortune and military reformer, who designed a new fortress on the highest hill overlooking the town. Work began in the 1760s and continued for decades, and the result was the most modern piece of the entire system, a fortress designed for the age of heavy artillery, with a star-shaped plan, deep ditches and underground galleries.
Read the complete Fort of Garça write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Fort of Garça is where the day begins. Next is Proserpina Dam.
The Romans built dams in Spain on a scale that still surprises engineers, and Proserpina, a few kilometres north of Mérida, is one of the best preserved. It was built in the first or second century AD to store water for Emerita Augusta, the provincial capital, which was fed by aqueduct from the lake. The dam is a massive earthen embankment faced with stone and backed by huge buttresses, some four hundred metres long, and it has held water for roughly nineteen centuries with repairs. The reservoir, a long green lake in a landscape of holm oak and rock, is now a place where local people fish, swim and walk.
Read the complete Proserpina Dam write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Proserpina Dam comes up about 89 km into the recorded legs. Next is Old Town of Cáceres.
Cáceres has an old town so complete that film crews treat it as a ready-made set, and walking its streets at dusk, when the stone glows amber and the crowds have gone, you can see why. Inside the walls, built largely by the Almohads in the twelfth century, are dozens of fortified mansions, towers, churches and palaces, many built by noble families who made their fortunes in the conquest of the Americas. The towers once had battlements, but Queen Isabella ordered most of them cut down to curb the nobles' power. UNESCO listed the old town in 1986.
Read the complete Old Town of Cáceres write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 163 km into the recorded legs you reach Old Town of Cáceres. Next is back through Proserpina Dam.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Proserpina Dam write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Proserpina Dam, late in the day. Next is Fort of Garça.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Fort of Garça write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Fort of Garça. That is the ride.
Fort of Garça → Proserpina Dam is 89 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Proserpina Dam → Old Town of Cáceres is 74 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Old Town of Cáceres → back through Proserpina Dam is 78 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Proserpina Dam → Fort of Garça is 89 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.