The recorded total and the leg detail need reconciliation. Inspect the leg notes before using this record for timing or navigation. Stops, delays, approach and any separate return travel add time. Basis: producer-declared routed record.
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Distance and riding time are measured on the routed road. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
From Tarragona it runs 511 km to Tarragona; allow about 9 h 15 of riding. The stops in between: Britus I, La Vall de la Coma, Camino de la Cova Plana II and mas de Torres. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Waypoint introductions and full write-ups
1. The Roman Theatre
Wherever you sit in the Roman theatre of Tarragona, you face the sea. The builders carved the seating into the slope of a hill that runs down to the shore, so that the audience looked past the stage toward open water, and the effect on a clear evening is of a stage set whose back wall is the Mediterranean. Only part of the structure survives, its curved terraces partly rebuilt and its stage area cluttered with the foundations of the later buildings that stood on it, and yet the shape of the whole is easy to read. It lies in the lower town, a few hundred metres from the harbour, and is one of the monuments of the Tàrraco ensemble listed by UNESCO in 2000.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
The Roman Theatre is where the day begins. Next is Britus I.
2. Britus I
Between Montblanc and Vimbodí, in the Conca de Barberà, the land rises toward the Prades mountains and the Serra de la Llena, and in the sandstone and limestone outcrops of these hills, prehistoric hunters left paintings in rock shelters. Britus I is one of these sites, with figures painted in the distinctive style of Levantine rock art, which shows scenes of hunting, gathering and daily life with lively human and animal figures. The rock art of the Mediterranean Basin on the Iberian Peninsula was inscribed by UNESCO in 1998, covering hundreds of sites from Catalonia to Andalusia. Many are small and fragile, and access is often restricted to protect them.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Britus I comes up 41 km in. Next is La Vall de la Coma.
3. La Vall de la Coma
The Garrigues is the dry heart of Lleida province, a land of terraced hills, stone walls and endless olive groves, and La Vall de la Coma is one of its quiet valleys, in the municipality of L'Albi. In a few rock shelters here, prehistoric people painted small figures in red, part of the Levantine rock art of the Mediterranean basin that is recognized as a World Heritage Site. The paintings are fragile and modest in size, and access is usually organized through local guides or interpretation centres, so plan ahead rather than expecting to wander in.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
82 km in you reach La Vall de la Coma. Next is Camino de la Cova Plana II.
4. Camino de la Cova Plana II
Three rivers come together near Mequinenza: the Ebro, flowing in from the west, and the Segre and Cinca, arriving together from the Pyrenees to the north. The meeting point, now swallowed by the reservoirs behind the dams, has always been a strategic place, and the much-restored castle on the hill above the town has watched over it for centuries. The Camino de la Cova Plana is a track in the hills east of town, towards the Catalan border, and the site recorded here is one of the many prehistoric rock shelters scattered across this dry, rugged landscape.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Camino de la Cova Plana II, about halfway. Next is mas de Torres.
5. mas de Torres
The Monegros in high summer is the closest thing Europe has to a desert, a wide, dry plateau of gypsum hills, wheat stubble and steppe scrub under a hard, white sky. Near the village of Candasnos, close to the main road between Zaragoza and Lleida, the shelter labelled Mas de Torres is one of the rock art sites of the Mediterranean Basin listed by UNESCO, a reminder that people lived and hunted here long before the land dried out to its present state.