The best traffic-free bike rides around Chercos

The old Arboleas station was one of the small nodes of the historic Almanzora railway, built by the GSSR at the end of the 19th century. The two-story building with masonry walls still retains its classic silhouette. Although it is fenced off today, it remains an interesting point on the route, a vestige of the line that for a century connected Granada, Almería, and Murcia.

Uleila del Campo is a small town located on the southern slopes of the Sierra de los Filabres, at the foot of Monteagud Hill. Its surroundings combine hills, gullies, and unusual sites such as "El Salar," a salt flat with a unique ecosystem. Its heritage includes the Neo-Romanesque Church of Santa María and the Cueva de la Mora archaeological site, home to Neolithic remains and cave paintings. The town keeps its traditions alive with festivals such as the Santo Cristo de las Penas festival in September, ideal for discovering local life and culture after a hike through the mountains.

The station has been renovated and now houses a cozy restaurant with a terrace.

Village situated in the foothills of the Filabres, descending to the depression of Sorbas and near the Campo de Tabernas. Situated on a small elevation, it forms a well-structured round group of buildings in a not unattractive landscape where fields of vineyards, almond and olive trees predominate. The church of St. Mary characterizes the village.

Beautiful via Verde with many views

VIA VERDE DEL VALLE DE ALMONZORA is a spectacular route of a total of 98 km through the southeast of the peninsula between the highlands of Granada in the Baza area towards the district of Almendricos, already in the region of Murcia, and passes through the Almanzora Valley in Almería. A route that for decades crossed a railway line that transported tons of iron and other merchandise.

The towns of Fines and Olula del Río are an encounter with the culture of marble; figures and pieces of marble with inscriptions and inspiring phrases appear on the old railroad track. In Olula there is the famous giant head of a woman, on the other side of the road, you have to be careful not to pass it by. And nearby is the town of Macael for those interested in visiting the “white gold” quarries of the Almanzora Valley. Purchena is far from the road, it is a town with an Andalusian feel, with narrow streets with whitewashed facades at the foot of the remains of an old Muslim fortress from the Nasrid era. The railway continues to trace the slopes of the valley and cross seasonal boulevards over imposing stone bridges to the Tíjola station, which preserves a train engine from the glorious era of the mining railway and the railway buildings. The station is a bar with food service and a terrace on one of the platforms. In Los Canos there are remains of the old iron ore loading dock. The carts arrived loaded with material by aerial cables from the mining sites and by simple gravity they filled the train cars that were in the tunnels located under the loading dock.

The cycling trip is distributed in three established stages mainly because each day is totally different in landscapes, history and content. The first day is the Vía Verde Valle del Almanzora Natural Trail, in the province of Almería, full of railway constructions, fertile meadows of orchards and fruit trees, marble sculptures and remains of the iron ore culture that for a century was produced by tons. towards the ports of Murcia. The second stage is the Sierra de Baza Greenway, between El Hijate and the famous iron bridge of Baúl, traveling through the steppe landscapes of the Baza plateau and the edge of the filmy badlands of the Gorafe desert, famous for its magical beauty. and because in the middle of the last century they were the setting for countless spaghetti westerns. And the third day seems like another world, starting from Gor the gravel adventure enters the peaks and mountains of the Sierra de Baza through immense pine forests and oak forests to the radars of Calar Alto, exceeding the level of two thousand meters of altitude with extraordinary views of the northern slope of the Sierra Nevada, closing the loop at the Tíjola station and a section back to Arboleas along the Natural Trail. The beginning is in the San Roque neighborhood of the municipality of Arboleas, at the beginning of the conditioned section of the Almanzora Valley on the route of the Guadix-Almendricos Greenway Natural Trail. The place is a simple road crossing with a guardhouse of the old railway level crossing. The continuation of the old mining railway towards Murcia through Zurgena and Huércal-Overa is not yet ready for bicycle traffic. The small Arboleas railway stop is in the direction of Baza about eight hundred meters later, arranged with gardens on the platforms, the Natural Trail panel, signs with names and distances and a good place to park, it can be an alternative starting point. The residential neighborhoods of Las Caleras, La Perla and El Prado disguise the whitish and steppe environment of the valley slopes, formed mainly by hills of marl, gypsum and other quirks of geology that favor the development of very exclusive and curious plants known as soap dishes.