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 Letur it runs 476 km to Letur; allow about 11 h 18 of riding. The stops in between: Los Sacristanes, Letreros de los mártires, Queso and maina. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,400 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. The line favours views over speed.
Waypoint introductions and full write-ups
1. Fuensanta I
Fuensanta is a place name that turns up all over southern Spain, a holy fountain, and the one on this ride lies in the mountains of the upper Segura, in the border country between Albacete and Murcia. The shelter here, numbered I, is one of the painted sites in the district of Moratalla, a municipality famous among archaeologists for having more rock-art shelters than almost any other in Spain. The paintings are in the Levantine and schematic styles, and the group is part of the UNESCO listing for the rock art of the Mediterranean basin.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Fuensanta I is where the day begins. Next is Los Sacristanes.
2. Los Sacristanes
Los Sacristanes is a name given to a group of painted shelters in the empty uplands near Nerpio, in the south-western corner of Albacete province. It sits on the high, pine-covered ground between the Taibilla valley and the headwaters of the Segura, a place so thinly populated that the nearest town of any size is the better part of an hour away. The paintings here, like those across this region, belong to the World Heritage site of Levantine rock art, and they are best seen with a local guide from Nerpio's interpretation centre.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Los Sacristanes comes up about 39 km into the recorded legs. Next is Letreros de los mártires.
3. Letreros de los mártires
Out in the high north-east of Granada province, Huéscar feels a long way from the Alhambra and the beaches of the Costa Tropical. This is the altiplano, a broad upland of wheat fields, almond trees and pale badlands at around a thousand metres, ringed by mountains, with the great limestone hump of La Sagra rising to the north. The rock shelter called Letreros de los Mártires lies in this country, a dozen or so kilometres from the town.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
about 95 km into the recorded legs you reach Letreros de los mártires. Next is Queso.
4. Queso
The far north of Almería surprises people who think the province is all desert and greenhouses. Up here, around the villages of María and Vélez-Blanco, you are in the Sierra de María-Los Vélez natural park, a range of limestone mountains covered with pine and holm oak, with snow in winter and cool nights even in August. The site recorded on the map simply as Queso sits in the hills south of María, among the cluster of prehistoric shelters for which this corner of Andalusia is known.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Queso, about halfway. Next is maina.
5. maina
Maina is an obscure name on the map in the Murcian hills north-west of Totana, where the Sierra Espuña rises above the valley of the Guadalentín. It refers to a rock shelter or painted site in the dry limestone country, part of the cluster of prehistoric art sites around here included in the World Heritage listing of Levantine rock art. As with many such places, there is often little to see without a guide, but the landscape around it is worth the ride.