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 Gernika-Lumo it runs 318 km to Gernika-Lumo; allow about 5 h 14 of riding. It goes by way of Cathédrale de Saint Jacques Apôtre, Eglise Santa Maria de la Asuncion, La Garma and Monte Castillo - El Castillo. 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 39 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 Cathédrale de Saint Jacques Apôtre.
Down in the Casco Viejo of Bilbao, where the old streets run in a tight grid beside the Nervión, the cathedral of Santiago stands at the heart of the Siete Calles, the seven original streets of the medieval town. It is a Gothic church, rebuilt after a fire in the sixteenth century, with a neo-Gothic façade and spire added later, and it sits so snugly among the tall houses that you often see it only when you are standing right in front of it.
Read the complete Cathédrale de Saint Jacques Apôtre write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Cathédrale de Saint Jacques Apôtre comes up about 39 km into the recorded legs. 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.
about 74 km into the recorded legs you reach Eglise Santa Maria de la Asuncion. Next is La Garma.
La Garma is a low limestone hill a few kilometres inland from the Bay of Santander, green with meadows and oak scrub, the sort of rounded Cantabrian hump you might ride past without a second glance. Inside it lies one of the most important prehistoric caves in Europe. Found by chance in the 1990s, the cave of La Garma contains not just paintings but preserved living floors from the Palaeolithic: hearths, bones, tools and the outlines of shelters left exactly as they were when a rockfall sealed the entrance thousands of years ago. It forms part of the UNESCO site of the Cave of Altamira and Palaeolithic Cave Art of Northern Spain.
Read the complete La Garma write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
La Garma, about halfway. Next is Monte Castillo - El Castillo.
Some of the oldest paintings in Europe sit in a hill above a village best known for its hot springs. The cave of El Castillo opens in the flank of Monte Castillo, right above Puente Viesgo in the Pas valley of Cantabria, and inside it are hand stencils and a red disc that scientists dated, in 2012, to more than forty thousand years ago. That makes them contenders for the oldest cave art known on the continent, and possibly older than any made by modern humans, since Neanderthals were around at the time. UNESCO lists the Cantabrian caves, and a visit means a guided group entering in small numbers, so book ahead and expect limits on the day.
Read the complete Monte Castillo - El Castillo write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Monte Castillo - El Castillo sits at 160 km, about halfway. Next is back through La Garma.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete La Garma write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through La Garma comes up about 194 km into the recorded legs. 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.
about 240 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Eglise Santa Maria de la Asuncion. Next is back through Cathédrale de Saint Jacques Apôtre.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Cathédrale de Saint Jacques Apôtre write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Cathédrale de Saint Jacques Apôtre, 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.
The route ends here after 318 km.
Santimamiñe → Cathédrale de Saint Jacques Apôtre is 39 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Cathédrale de Saint Jacques Apôtre → Eglise Santa Maria de la Asuncion is 35 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Eglise Santa Maria de la Asuncion → La Garma is 46 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
La Garma → Monte Castillo - El Castillo is 36 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Monte Castillo - El Castillo → back through La Garma is 38 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through La Garma → back through Eglise Santa Maria de la Asuncion is 46 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Eglise Santa Maria de la Asuncion → back through Cathédrale de Saint Jacques Apôtre is 39 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Cathédrale de Saint Jacques Apôtre → Santimamiñe is 40 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.