CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
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.
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.
A 350 km round trip from Florence - roughly 6 h 04 in the saddle. The stops in between: Villa de Cerreto Guidi, Historic Centre of San Gimignano, Montecatini Terme and back through Historic Centre of San Gimignano. It suits an unhurried touring pace.
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For 41 km this is Chiantigiana Wine Road, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
Florence was one of the great stops on the Mille Miglia, and it is easy to see why the race came through. Drivers arriving from Bologna had crossed the Raticosa and Futa passes in the Apennines, a long, twisting run of hairpins that tested both engines and nerves, then dropped down into the Arno valley to the city where Brunelleschi's red dome rises above a sea of terracotta roofs. The dome, completed in the fifteenth century over the cathedral, was a feat of engineering that was done without a conventional wooden frame, and it still defines the skyline.
Read the complete Florence write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Florence is where the day begins. Next is Villa de Cerreto Guidi.
Cosimo I de' Medici liked to hunt, and in the 1560s he had a villa built on a hilltop at Cerreto Guidi, on the edge of the marshes and woods west of Florence, where the game was plentiful. From the outside it is austere, a solid block of stone facing a square, but the approach is spectacular: a pair of great brick ramps, known as the Medici bridges, zigzag up to the entrance. The villa is part of the UNESCO listing of the Medici Villas and Gardens in Tuscany, and it holds a dark legend. Cosimo's daughter Isabella died here in 1576, and the story goes that she was murdered by her husband, Paolo Giordano Orsini, for her alleged infidelity. Whether it is true or not, it is told to every visitor.
Read the complete Villa de Cerreto Guidi write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Villa de Cerreto Guidi comes up 39 km in. Next is Historic Centre of San Gimignano.
Seen from the surrounding countryside, San Gimignano looks like a medieval Manhattan: a cluster of stone towers rising from a hilltop above vineyards and olive groves in the Val d'Elsa. In its heyday, in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the town had dozens of them, built by rival families as symbols of power and wealth. Fourteen survive, enough to make it one of the most recognisable towns in Italy and a UNESCO World Heritage site since 1990.
Read the complete Historic Centre of San Gimignano write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
79 km in you reach Historic Centre of San Gimignano. Next is Historic Centre of San Gimignano.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Historic Centre of San Gimignano write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Historic Centre of San Gimignano, about halfway. Next is Montecatini Terme.
The water at Montecatini has been drunk for health since the Middle Ages, but it was in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries that the town became one of the great spa resorts of Europe, with grand thermal establishments built in neoclassical, Liberty and Art Deco styles, set in parks of plane trees and pines. The Tettuccio, with its marble colonnades and frescoes, is the most famous, a temple of water where visitors drink from taps along a counter. In 2021 Montecatini became part of the Great Spa Towns of Europe World Heritage Site, alongside Baden-Baden, Bath, Vichy and others.
Read the complete Montecatini Terme write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Montecatini Terme sits at 158 km, about halfway. Next is back through Historic Centre of San Gimignano.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Historic Centre of San Gimignano write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Historic Centre of San Gimignano comes up 197 km in.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Historic Centre of San Gimignano write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
236 km in you reach back through Historic Centre of San Gimignano. Next is back through Villa de Cerreto Guidi.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Villa de Cerreto Guidi write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Villa de Cerreto Guidi, late in the day. Next is Florence.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Florence write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 350 km.
Florence → Villa de Cerreto Guidi is 41 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Villa de Cerreto Guidi → Historic Centre of San Gimignano is 47 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Historic Centre of San Gimignano → Montecatini Terme is 69 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Montecatini Terme → back through Historic Centre of San Gimignano is 69 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Historic Centre of San Gimignano → back through Villa de Cerreto Guidi is 47 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Villa de Cerreto Guidi → Florence is 41 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.