La Saltadora- Abric I and Abrigo del Barranco Hondo
Plan this ride
Recorded distance
419 km
Riding-time estimate
7 h 34
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.
419 km from Albocàsser to Albocàsser, about 7 h 34 of riding. On the way it passes La fenellosa, Abrigo del Barranco Hondo and back through La fenellosa. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,200 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. The line favours views over speed.
Waypoint introductions and full write-ups
1. La Saltadora- Abric I
Albocàsser sits on a limestone shelf in the northern Maestrat, a farming village of about fourteen hundred people with a stone church, a market-day bustle and almond trees all around. A few kilometres from it, the Gasulla ravine and its neighbours hold Levantine rock paintings, and La Saltadora, the Jumper, is one of the shelters, named perhaps for a leaping figure or a nimble ledge. The Rock Art of the Mediterranean Basin on the Iberian Peninsula was added to the UNESCO list in 1998, and Abric I is a small but significant piece of that story.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
La Saltadora- Abric I is where the day begins. Next is La fenellosa.
2. La fenellosa
People in Aragón like to call the Matarraña their Tuscany, and for once the comparison is not entirely marketing. It is a comarca of honey-coloured stone villages on hilltops, olive groves on terraces, almond trees and vineyards, with the limestone wall of the Ports de Beseit rising behind. La Fenellosa lies in this country, between Valderrobres, Fuentespalda and Mas de Barberans across the Catalan line, in the rough hills where the farmland gives way to the mountains.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
La fenellosa comes up about 113 km into the recorded legs. Next is Abrigo del Barranco Hondo.
3. Abrigo del Barranco Hondo
Castellote is one of those villages in the Teruel Maestrazgo that seems to have been built by people who wanted to be left alone. Its houses pile up beneath a great rock wall topped by the ruins of a castle associated with the Knights Templar, and the Guadalope river winds below on its way into the Santolea reservoir. The Abrigo del Barranco Hondo, a painted rock shelter in a deep ravine outside the village, is part of the extensive collection of Levantine rock art scattered through these mountains, with small figures in red ochre that have survived on the stone for millennia.