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.
From Castillejo de Martín Viejo it runs 252 km to Castillejo de Martín Viejo; allow about 4 h 56 of riding. On the way it passes Faia - Vale Afonsinho, Canada do Inferno / Rego da vide, Faia and Meijapão. It crosses from Spain into Portugal - carry ID and check the toll rules.
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For about 20 km this is Douro Valley N222, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
On the Spanish side of the border with Portugal, the river Águeda cuts through granite and schist on its way to the Douro, and on the rock faces along its banks, at Siega Verde, Palaeolithic people engraved horses, aurochs, deer and goats more than ten thousand years ago. In 2010 Siega Verde was added to the Prehistoric Rock Art Sites in the Côa Valley, the Portuguese World Heritage Site just across the border, recognising that these open-air engravings form one of the largest collections of Ice Age art in the world.
Read the complete Prehistoric Rock Art Sites in the Côa Vall write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Prehistoric Rock Art Sites in the Côa Vall is where the day begins. Next is Faia - Vale Afonsinho.
Thirty thousand years ago, give or take, people in this valley scratched horses, aurochs and ibex into the schist rocks along the River Côa, and their drawings would almost certainly have been drowned if a dam had been built here in the 1990s. Instead, after a fierce campaign, the dam was abandoned and the Côa Valley rock art became one of the most important open-air Palaeolithic art sites in the world, listed by UNESCO in 1998 together with Siega Verde across the border in Spain. Faia, in the side valley near Vale Afonsinho, is one of its core sites, with engravings and some rare painted figures on the rock faces above the river.
Read the complete Faia - Vale Afonsinho write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Faia - Vale Afonsinho comes up about 61 km into the recorded legs. Next is Canada do Inferno / Rego da vide.
The Côa valley holds one of the greatest open-air galleries of Paleolithic art on earth, and it was almost lost. In the early 1990s, as work began on a dam to flood the valley, archaeologists found engravings of horses, aurochs and ibex on the schist cliffs, some of them more than twenty thousand years old. After a public campaign, the dam was abandoned in 1996, and in 1998 the site was listed by UNESCO. It remains one of the rare cases in Europe where a planned dam gave way to cave art.
Read the complete Canada do Inferno / Rego da vide write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 81 km into the recorded legs you reach Canada do Inferno / Rego da vide. Next is Faia.
Faia is the quietest of the Côa Valley rock art sites, and its distance from the main road is part of the charm. Located on the plateau south of the Côa river, about fifteen kilometres from Mêda, a small town of about two thousand, it is one of the places where Paleolithic artists scratched the animals they hunted onto the schist. Visits are by guided tour from the Côa Museum, and you should book ahead, since the number of visitors is limited.
Read the complete Faia write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Faia, about halfway. Next is Meijapão.
Seen from the roadside, the land around Meijapão looks like nothing much: dry stone walls, almond groves, olive trees and a few low farm buildings spread over a high plateau of schist and granite. It lies a little south of Vila Nova de Foz Côa, in the border country of north-eastern Portugal that people call Trás-os-Montes e Alto Douro, which translates roughly as behind the mountains. The very ordinariness is part of the charm, because the rock under those fields hides one of the great prehistoric galleries of Europe.
Read the complete Meijapão write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Meijapão sits at 113 km, about halfway. Next is back through Faia.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Faia write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Faia comes up about 147 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Canada do Inferno / Rego da vide.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Canada do Inferno / Rego da vide write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 173 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Canada do Inferno / Rego da vide. Next is back through Faia - Vale Afonsinho.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Faia - Vale Afonsinho write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Faia - Vale Afonsinho, late in the day. Next is Prehistoric Rock Art Sites in the Côa Vall.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Prehistoric Rock Art Sites in the Côa Vall write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 252 km.
Prehistoric Rock Art Sites in the Côa Vall → Faia - Vale Afonsinho is 61 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Faia - Vale Afonsinho → Canada do Inferno / Rego da vide is 20 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Canada do Inferno / Rego da vide → Faia is 20 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Faia → Meijapão is 26 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Meijapão → back through Faia is 20 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Faia → back through Canada do Inferno / Rego da vide is 26 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Canada do Inferno / Rego da vide → back through Faia - Vale Afonsinho is 20 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Faia - Vale Afonsinho → Prehistoric Rock Art Sites in the Côa Vall is 59 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.