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 Mequinensa / Mequinenza it runs 182 km to Mequinensa / Mequinenza; allow about 4 h 37 of riding. On the way it passes Val de mamet I, Abrigo del Plano del Pulido, Abric del mas de Barberà and back through Abrigo del Plano del Pulido. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Waypoint introductions and full write-ups
1. Roca de marta
Mequinenza lies where the Segre river meets the Ebro, and the town you see today is not the one that stood here before the 1960s. When a dam was built downstream on the Ebro, the old town was flooded by the reservoir, known as the Mar de Aragón, and its people moved to a new settlement on higher ground. The old castle still sits above the water, and the reservoir stretches in long fingers between bare, ochre hills. It is a landscape both beautiful and a little melancholy, and the lake is famous among anglers for enormous catfish.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Roca de marta is where the day begins. Next is Val de mamet I.
2. Val de mamet I
The Ebro river cuts through Aragon in a wide, dry valley, and where it meets its tributaries the Segre and Cinca around Mequinenza it was dammed in the twentieth century to make long, narrow lakes among bare hills. Val de Mamet is a dry side valley in this country, with a shelter that holds prehistoric paintings. The surroundings are arid and open, with low limestone cliffs, thyme and rosemary scrub, and scattered pines and almonds, and the silence is broken mostly by the wind and the occasional hawk.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Val de mamet I comes up about 22 km into the recorded legs. Next is Abrigo del Plano del Pulido.
3. Abrigo del Plano del Pulido
South of Caspe, the lower Aragón country is a dry, sculpted landscape of ochre hills, flat-topped mesas and gullies cut into soft sandstone, with almond and olive groves clinging to the valley floors. In these sandstone outcrops, prehistoric people found shelter and left paintings, and the Abrigo del Plano del Pulido is one of the rock shelters of the area included in the World Heritage site of the rock art of the Mediterranean Basin on the Iberian Peninsula. The painted figures, in the reddish tones of Levantine art, are small and faded, and as at most of these sites, access is controlled and visits may need to be arranged in advance.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
about 62 km into the recorded legs you reach Abrigo del Plano del Pulido. 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.