CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
The recorded total and the leg detail need reconciliation. Inspect the leg notes before using this record for timing or navigation. 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.
A 310 km round trip from Elvas - roughly 5 h 06 in the saddle. The stops in between: Proserpina Dam, Cornalvo Dam, The Roman Circus and Thermal Baths at Alange. It crosses from Portugal into Spain - carry ID and check the toll rules. It suits an unhurried touring pace.
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For 21 km this is Ruta de la Plata, a road with a name of its own and a reason for 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the Seven Years War, and Portugal, which had been dragged into conflict with Spain, found that its border defences were out of date.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 39 km in. Next is Cornalvo Dam.
Nearly two thousand years after Roman engineers built it, the dam at Cornalvo still holds water. It lies in the rolling countryside north-east of Mérida, in Extremadura, and it supplied the Roman city of Augusta Emerita, capital of the province of Lusitania. The dam is an earthen embankment faced with stone, with a tower in the reservoir that controlled the outflow, and it is part of the Archaeological Ensemble of Mérida, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Read the complete Cornalvo Dam write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
At least 85 km in you reach Cornalvo Dam. Next is The Roman Circus.
Mérida was founded in 25 BC as Augusta Emerita, a city for veterans of the Cantabrian Wars, and it grew into the capital of the Roman province of Lusitania. Few places in Spain carry their Roman past so openly. The circus lies on the eastern side of town, a long, flat oval of grass more than four hundred metres from end to end, with the low remains of the central barrier and the seating banks around it. It once held tens of thousands of spectators for chariot races, and though the stands are mostly gone, you can still walk the track and picture the teams thundering around the turning posts.
Read the complete The Roman Circus write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The Roman Circus, about halfway. Next is Thermal Baths at Alange.
The Romans, who were serious about hot water, found a warm spring at Alange in what is now Extremadura and built a bathing complex around it, and the place is still used today. The Roman baths, about twenty kilometres from Mérida, include a domed chamber with stone benches and a pool fed by the spring, and the water comes out pleasantly warm, a gift in a dry country. The baths date from the time when Mérida, then called Emerita Augusta, was one of the great cities of Roman Spain, and wealthy citizens would travel here to relax and be cured.
Read the complete Thermal Baths at Alange write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Thermal Baths at Alange sits at 157 km, about halfway. Next is back through The Roman Circus.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete The Roman Circus write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through The Roman Circus comes up 196 km in. Next is back through Cornalvo Dam.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Cornalvo Dam write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
236 km in you reach back through Cornalvo Dam. 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.
The route ends here after 310 km.
Fort of Garça → Proserpina Dam is 94 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Proserpina Dam → Cornalvo Dam is 21 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Cornalvo Dam → The Roman Circus is 20 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
The Roman Circus → Thermal Baths at Alange is 23 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Thermal Baths at Alange → back through The Roman Circus is 23 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through The Roman Circus → back through Cornalvo Dam is 20 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Cornalvo Dam → back through Proserpina Dam is 21 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Proserpina Dam → Fort of Garça is 94 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.