Iglesia parroquial de Santa Tecla and Abrigo de los Arqueros Negros
Plan this ride
Recorded distance
168 km
Riding-time estimate
2 h 49
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: 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 168 km round trip from Cervera de la Cañada - roughly 2 h 49 in the saddle. On the way it passes Iglesia de Santa María, Abrigo de los Arqueros Negros and back through Iglesia de Santa María. 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. Iglesia parroquial de Santa Tecla
Cervera de la Cañada is a village of a few hundred people in the hills south of the Jalón valley, in the province of Zaragoza, with a church of Santa Tecla whose brick apse is one of the finest examples of Mudéjar work in Aragon. The label puts you right in the village, and the town of Calatayud lies twelve kilometres away to the north-east, on the main road between Madrid and Zaragoza.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Iglesia parroquial de Santa Tecla is where the day begins. Next is Iglesia de Santa María.
2. Iglesia de Santa María
Somewhere in the folds of the Sierra de Algairén, south-west of Zaragoza, a bell tower pokes up above a cluster of ochre roofs, and that is your Iglesia de Santa María. Half the villages of Aragon have a church of that name, and this one does the job the others do: it marks the middle of a small place where the shop, the bar and the plaza all orbit the same square of stone. The nearest neighbours on the map are Cosuenda, Almonacid de la Sierra and Alpartir, each a few hundred souls, each about nine kilometres off.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Iglesia de Santa María comes up about 46 km into the recorded legs. Next is Abrigo de los Arqueros Negros.
3. Abrigo de los Arqueros Negros
The prehistoric painters of eastern Spain had a thing for archers. Across hundreds of rock shelters from Catalonia to Andalusia, they painted small, dynamic human figures drawing bows, chasing deer and goats, sometimes fighting each other, and these scenes of the so-called Levantine style are part of the UNESCO listing of rock art of the Mediterranean Basin on the Iberian Peninsula. Shelters with names like the Abrigo de los Arqueros Negros, the shelter of the black archers, are scattered through the limestone hills of the province of Teruel and its neighbours in Aragon, often in remote ravines and protected by grilles.