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.
283 km from Gernika-Lumo to Gernika-Lumo, about 4 h 09 of riding. It goes by way of Eglise Santa Maria de la Asuncion, El Pendo and back through Eglise Santa Maria de la Asuncion. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For about 73 km this is Basque Coast Route, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
In 1916, a group of boys exploring a hillside in the Basque Country found paintings deep inside a cave, and Santimamiñe became one of the most important prehistoric sites in the region. The cave, near Kortezubi in the Urdaibai valley, contains Magdalenian paintings of bison, horses, goats and deer, made around fourteen thousand years ago, and it is part of the UNESCO listing of cave art of northern Spain. To protect the paintings, the cave itself is closed to the public, but a visitor centre offers a virtual tour that recreates the interior in detail, with guides explaining the art and the people who made it.
Read the complete Santimamiñe write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Santimamiñe is where the day begins. Next is Eglise Santa Maria de la Asuncion.
Castro-Urdiales has one of the best harbour fronts on the whole Cantabrian coast, and it knows it. The Gothic church of Santa María de la Asunción stands on a rocky headland above the old port, its buttresses and pinnacles silhouetted against the sea, flanked by the remains of a castle that now holds a lighthouse and by a medieval bridge leading to a little chapel on a rock. Built from the thirteenth century onward, the church is one of the finest Gothic buildings in northern Spain, and it lies on the coastal route of the Way of Saint James, which is part of a UNESCO listing that covers the pilgrimage roads of the north.
Read the complete Eglise Santa Maria de la Asuncion write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Eglise Santa Maria de la Asuncion comes up about 73 km into the recorded legs. Next is El Pendo.
In 1997, in a cave that people had been visiting for over a century, a group of researchers noticed paintings that everyone had walked past: a frieze of red figures, deer, horses and goats, high on a wall in the main chamber. El Pendo, in the municipality of Camargo just south of Santander, had long been known for its deep layers of Stone Age occupation, but the frieze made it one of the important painted caves of Cantabria, and in 2008 it joined the World Heritage listing of the Paleolithic cave art of northern Spain alongside Altamira.
Read the complete El Pendo write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 142 km into the recorded legs you reach El Pendo. Next is back through Eglise Santa Maria de la Asuncion.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Eglise Santa Maria de la Asuncion write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Eglise Santa Maria de la Asuncion, late in the day. Next is Santimamiñe.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Santimamiñe write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Santimamiñe. That is the ride.
Santimamiñe → Eglise Santa Maria de la Asuncion is 73 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Eglise Santa Maria de la Asuncion → El Pendo is 69 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
El Pendo → back through Eglise Santa Maria de la Asuncion is 69 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Eglise Santa Maria de la Asuncion → Santimamiñe is 73 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.