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 Moratalla it runs 227 km to Moratalla; allow about 6 h 20 of riding. On the way it passes Cavidad V, Arroyo de la fuente de las Zorras, Letreros de los mártires and back through Arroyo de la fuente de las Zorras. 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. Hondares
Hondares is a word on a map that barely registers, and that is exactly why people come. It lies in the high, dry country where the province of Murcia gives way to Albacete, between the Sierra de Segura foothills and the Segura river, which has carved a long valley here before it spills into the Fuensanta reservoir. Moratalla, the nearest real town, is about twelve kilometres away, and in this part of Spain that counts as close.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Hondares is where the day begins. Next is Cavidad V.
2. Cavidad V
Nerpio is about as far from anywhere as you can get in mainland Spain. This village of around sixteen hundred people sits in the Sierra del Segura, in the far south-west of Albacete province, close to the borders of Murcia and Andalusia, and the surrounding hills are dotted with shelters containing prehistoric paintings. The numbered sites around here, Cavidad V among them, are part of the UNESCO-listed Rock Art of the Mediterranean Basin, and the Nerpio area is one of the richest concentrations of Levantine art in Spain, with hunting scenes, archers and animals painted thousands of years ago.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Cavidad V comes up about 23 km into the recorded legs. Next is Arroyo de la fuente de las Zorras.
3. Arroyo de la fuente de las Zorras
The name means the stream of the foxes' spring, which is the kind of place name that only survives in country where people still walk. The ravines around Nerpio hold dozens of painted rock shelters, with Levantine and Schematic paintings of hunters, animals and symbols, and they form part of the UNESCO listing of rock art of the Mediterranean Basin on the Iberian Peninsula. Visits to many of them need to be arranged through the local interpretation centre.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
about 48 km into the recorded legs you reach Arroyo de la fuente de las Zorras. Next is Letreros de los mártires.
4. 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.