Cycling through the Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa

Weekend cycling through the landscapes of the Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa: Despeñaperros, Santa Elena and La Carolina.

The Despeñaperros Natural Park, one of the most beautiful natural settings of the Mediterranean forest, was tinged for several days in that song-like year of 1212 by the clash between two empires, two religions, two ways of seeing the world that threatened the Iberian territories.

The context of the battle, the Homeric deployment of troops, and the movement of borders had an immediate impact on what would happen in the following centuries.
both in our culture and in the economy and society of our peninsula, and even in the entire context of Western Europe.

We will follow in the footsteps of those forces and try to understand those events, now on bicycles and along better roads than those used back then.

A simple route with plenty of content to start the year 2026.

Accommodations We slept in La Carolina, comfortably settled in the Hotel La Perdiz 4*.