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.
414 km from Ares del Maestre to Ares del Maestre, about 8 h 01 of riding. The stops in between: Coveta de la Cornisa, Las Rozas I, Abric del mas de Barberà and Los Estrechos I. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,250 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. The line favours views over speed.
Waypoint introductions and full write-ups
1. Racó molero
Truffles grow under the oaks of the Maestrat. The black truffle, Tuber melanosporum, favours the cool, limestone soils of the high plateaus of Castellón, Teruel and Tarragona, and in recent decades farmers have planted oak plantations to cultivate it, hoping for a crop that sells for a high price in winter. Dogs are trained to find it, . The Racó Molero, a ravine corner four or five kilometres from Benassal, is in the oak country, and the woods around it hold a mixture of holm oak, pine and juniper.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Racó molero is where the day begins. Next is Coveta de la Cornisa.
2. Coveta de la Cornisa
Morella is one of the most dramatic towns in Spain: a walled medieval city wrapped around a conical hill, with a castle on the summit and its walls running unbroken around the base. It stands in the mountains of the Ports in the north of Castellón province, at around a thousand metres, and its silhouette, seen from the roads that climb toward it, is unforgettable. The Coveta de la Cornisa, the little cave of the ledge, lies in the hills about four kilometres away.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Coveta de la Cornisa comes up about 45 km into the recorded legs. Next is Las Rozas I.
3. Las Rozas I
The upper valley of the Guadalope in Teruel is a place where limestone has been folded, cut and carved into an extraordinary array of shapes: cliffs, gorges, natural arches and pinnacles, with the river winding between them in places of startling green. Near Castellote, the painted shelter labelled Las Rozas I is one of the sites of Levantine rock art listed by UNESCO. Its figures are faint and fragile, but they speak of people who hunted deer and ibex in these same valleys thousands of years ago.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
about 105 km into the recorded legs you reach Las Rozas I. Next is Abric del mas de Barberà.
4. Abric del mas de Barberà
Alcañiz is the capital of the Bajo Aragón, a region of olive groves, cereal fields and dry hills crossed by the Guadalope river in the south-east of Aragón. The town is crowned by a castle built for the Order of Calatrava, now a parador, and its main square, with a Gothic loggia and the town hall, is one of the finest in the region. The shelter of the Mas de Barberà lies in the hills just outside town, toward Castelserás and Calanda.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Abric del mas de Barberà, about halfway. Next is Los Estrechos I.
5. Los Estrechos I
Los Estrechos means the narrows, and the name fits the country around Albalate del Arzobispo, in the Bajo Aragón, where the Martín river squeezes through limestone gorges on its way to the Ebro. The landscape is dry and open, a mixture of olive groves, almond terraces and low scrub, with sudden canyons and cliffs. The Martín valley is protected as a cultural park, because it holds a remarkable series of rock shelters with Levantine and Schematic paintings, some of which belong to the Mediterranean-arc group that UNESCO listed in 1998.