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 273 km round trip from Pola de Lena - roughly 4 h 25 in the saddle. On the way it passes Cámara Santa de Oviedo, La Peña de Candamo, Eglise Santa Maria de Soto de Luiña and Eglise et Monastère de San Salvador. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,250 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available.
On a grassy knoll above the Lena valley, south of Oviedo, stands a tiny stone church that has watched over the main road between Asturias and Castile for more than a thousand years. Santa Cristina de Lena is one of the jewels of Asturian pre-Romanesque architecture, built in the ninth century when the little Christian kingdom of Asturias was the only part of Iberia outside Muslim rule. Its unusual plan, with a raised presbytery behind an arcade of carved arches, and its finely worked stone screens are unique. Together with Santa María del Naranco and San Miguel de Lillo in Oviedo, it is part of a World Heritage listing.
Read the complete Santa Cristina de Lena write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Santa Cristina de Lena is where the day begins. Next is Cámara Santa de Oviedo.
Oviedo is a surprise, a small, green, rainy capital with an almost Alpine smell of woodsmoke and a history that begins with a king. In the early ninth century Alfonso II, called the Chaste, moved his court here and began building churches in a style now called Asturian pre-Romanesque, which is unlike anything else in Spain, with tall narrow proportions, round arches and decorated stone. The Cámara Santa is a chapel inside the cathedral of San Salvador, built to protect relics and treasures, and it still holds the Cross of the Angels, dated to 808, and the Cross of Victory, which belonged to the later king Alfonso III and became the emblem of Asturias. UNESCO included the city's early monuments in its list in 1985.
Read the complete Cámara Santa de Oviedo write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Cámara Santa de Oviedo comes up about 36 km into the recorded legs. Next is La Peña de Candamo.
In the hills above the Nalón valley in Asturias, a cave hides one of the great collections of Paleolithic art in Spain. The Cueva de la Peña de Candamo, near San Román de Candamo, was discovered in 1914 and contains paintings and engravings of horses, bison, deer, goats and other animals, made during the Upper Paleolithic, and a remarkable wall of engraved figures. It is part of the UNESCO listing of cave art in northern Spain, and unlike some other caves, it can be visited, though only in limited numbers and for part of the year, so book ahead.
Read the complete La Peña de Candamo write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 68 km into the recorded legs you reach La Peña de Candamo. Next is Eglise Santa Maria de Soto de Luiña.
Soto de Luiña is a quiet parish in western Asturias, a short way inland from one of the wildest stretches of the Cantabrian coast, and its church of Santa María is the reason the village has a name beyond the region. The building is baroque, rebuilt in the eighteenth century around older foundations, and alongside it stands the former pilgrims' hospital that once took in walkers on the coastal Way of Saint James. The church's interior, with its gilded altarpieces, comes as a surprise in such a small place, and the whole ensemble gives a sense of how the Camino shaped even modest villages along the route.
Read the complete Eglise Santa Maria de Soto de Luiña write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Eglise Santa Maria de Soto de Luiña, about halfway. Next is Eglise et Monastère de San Salvador.
Pilgrims have been trudging past these walls for about a thousand years, which makes a motorcycle look like a rather recent idea. The monastery of San Salvador de Cornellana stands beside the Narcea river in central Asturias, on the old inland route to Santiago that runs west from Oviedo through Grado and Salas. It was founded in the eleventh century, passed to the Benedictines of Cluny, and the church that survives keeps Romanesque bones under later remodelling. The bulk of the cloister and the old monastic buildings give the little village a weight that seems out of proportion to its size.
Read the complete Eglise et Monastère de San Salvador write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Eglise et Monastère de San Salvador sits at 112 km, about halfway. Next is back through Eglise Santa Maria de Soto de Luiña.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Eglise Santa Maria de Soto de Luiña write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Eglise Santa Maria de Soto de Luiña comes up about 173 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through La Peña de Candamo.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete La Peña de Candamo write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 206 km into the recorded legs you reach back through La Peña de Candamo. Next is back through Cámara Santa de Oviedo.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Cámara Santa de Oviedo write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Cámara Santa de Oviedo, late in the day. Next is Santa Cristina de Lena.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Santa Cristina de Lena write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 273 km.
Santa Cristina de Lena → Cámara Santa de Oviedo is 36 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Cámara Santa de Oviedo → La Peña de Candamo is 32 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
La Peña de Candamo → Eglise Santa Maria de Soto de Luiña is 32 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Eglise Santa Maria de Soto de Luiña → Eglise et Monastère de San Salvador is 37 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Eglise et Monastère de San Salvador → back through Eglise Santa Maria de Soto de Luiña is 36 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Eglise Santa Maria de Soto de Luiña → back through La Peña de Candamo is 33 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through La Peña de Candamo → back through Cámara Santa de Oviedo is 32 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Cámara Santa de Oviedo → Santa Cristina de Lena is 36 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.