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.
231 km from Entrambasaguas to Entrambasaguas, about 3 h 32 of riding. On the way it passes El Pendo, Chemin de la Liébana, Llonín and back through Chemin de la Liébana. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,050 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
La Garma is a low limestone hill a few kilometres inland from the Bay of Santander, green with meadows and oak scrub, the sort of rounded Cantabrian hump you might ride past without a second glance. Inside it lies one of the most important prehistoric caves in Europe. Found by chance in the 1990s, the cave of La Garma contains not just paintings but preserved living floors from the Palaeolithic: hearths, bones, tools and the outlines of shelters left exactly as they were when a rockfall sealed the entrance thousands of years ago. It forms part of the UNESCO site of the Cave of Altamira and Palaeolithic Cave Art of Northern Spain.
Read the complete La Garma write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
La Garma is where the day begins. Next is El Pendo.
In 1997, in a cave that people had been visiting for over a century, a group of researchers noticed paintings that everyone had walked past: a frieze of red figures, deer, horses and goats, high on a wall in the main chamber. El Pendo, in the municipality of Camargo just south of Santander, had long been known for its deep layers of Stone Age occupation, but the frieze made it one of the important painted caves of Cantabria, and in 2008 it joined the World Heritage listing of the Paleolithic cave art of northern Spain alongside Altamira.
Read the complete El Pendo write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
El Pendo comes up about 28 km into the recorded legs. Next is Chemin de la Liébana.
San Vicente de la Barquera is where the Camino Lebaniego begins, the old pilgrim route that leaves the Cantabrian coast and climbs south into the mountains of Liébana to the monastery of Santo Toribio. The town sits on a pair of estuaries, with a long medieval bridge carrying the road across the water, a castle and the Gothic church of Santa María above the harbour, and on clear days the snowy peaks of the Picos de Europa rising behind the marshes like a stage set.
Read the complete Chemin de la Liébana write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 85 km into the recorded legs you reach Chemin de la Liébana. Next is Llonín.
The cave of Llonín is not one you can walk into. It sits in the valley of the river Cares in Peñamellera Alta, in the far east of Asturias, and it is one of the decorated Palaeolithic caves of northern Spain listed by UNESCO alongside Altamira. Its walls hold engravings and paintings of deer, goats and other animals, and the cave has been studied by archaeologists for decades, but access is restricted to protect the art. What you get instead is the landscape that sheltered those artists, and that is very much worth the trip.
Read the complete Llonín write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Llonín, about halfway. Next is back through Chemin de la Liébana.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Chemin de la Liébana write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Chemin de la Liébana sits at 145 km, about halfway. Next is back through El Pendo.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete El Pendo write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through El Pendo comes up about 202 km into the recorded legs. Next is La Garma.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete La Garma write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
La Garma closes the day.
La Garma → El Pendo is 28 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
El Pendo → Chemin de la Liébana is 57 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Chemin de la Liébana → Llonín is 29 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Llonín → back through Chemin de la Liébana is 31 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Chemin de la Liébana → back through El Pendo is 57 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through El Pendo → La Garma is 29 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.