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.
A 321 km round trip from Cáceres - roughly 4 h 13 in the saddle. On the way it passes Proserpina Dam, Fortlet of São Mamede and back through Proserpina Dam. It crosses from Spain into Portugal - carry ID and check the toll rules. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Speed drops and stays down. Park rather than crawl through. 76 km through ground somebody thought worth listing. The road passes it rather than bypassing it.
Cáceres has an old town so complete that film crews treat it as a ready-made set, and walking its streets at dusk, when the stone glows amber and the crowds have gone, you can see why. Inside the walls, built largely by the Almohads in the twelfth century, are dozens of fortified mansions, towers, churches and palaces, many built by noble families who made their fortunes in the conquest of the Americas. The towers once had battlements, but Queen Isabella ordered most of them cut down to curb the nobles' power. UNESCO listed the old town in 1986.
Read the complete Old Town of Cáceres write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Old Town of Cáceres is where the day begins. Next is Proserpina Dam.
The Romans built dams in Spain on a scale that still surprises engineers, and Proserpina, a few kilometres north of Mérida, is one of the best preserved. It was built in the first or second century AD to store water for Emerita Augusta, the provincial capital, which was fed by aqueduct from the lake. The dam is a massive earthen embankment faced with stone and backed by huge buttresses, some four hundred metres long, and it has held water for roughly nineteen centuries with repairs. The reservoir, a long green lake in a landscape of holm oak and rock, is now a place where local people fish, swim and walk.
Read the complete Proserpina Dam write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Proserpina Dam comes up about 78 km into the recorded legs. Next is Fortlet of São Mamede.
A fortress the size of a small farm sits on a rise outside Elvas, and it is easy to ride past without noticing it. The Fortlet of Sao Mamede is one of the smaller pieces in the great defensive puzzle of this border town, an outpost on high ground whose job was to hold an approach and make life hard for anyone trying to besiege the main walls. It dates from the seventeenth century, the age of the Portuguese Restoration wars, when the country was fighting for independence from Spain and every hill on the border sprouted earthworks, a time when engineers sketched star-shaped plans from Dutch and Italian pattern books.
Read the complete Fortlet of São Mamede write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 163 km into the recorded legs you reach Fortlet of São Mamede. Next is back through Proserpina Dam.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Proserpina Dam write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Proserpina Dam, late in the day. Next is Old Town of Cáceres.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Old Town of Cáceres write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Old Town of Cáceres. That is the ride.
Old Town of Cáceres → Proserpina Dam is 78 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Proserpina Dam → Fortlet of São Mamede is 85 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Fortlet of São Mamede → back through Proserpina Dam is 85 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Proserpina Dam → Old Town of Cáceres is 74 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.