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.
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Distance and riding time are measured on the routed road. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
From City Center it runs 225 km to City Center; allow about 3 h 39 of riding. On the way it passes University and Historic Precinct of Alcalá, Monastery and Site of the Escurial, Palace and back through Monastery and Site of the Escurial. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,250 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available.
1 km on Monastery and Site of the Escurial → Palace.
Madrid sits higher than any other capital in the European Union, around six hundred and fifty metres above the sea, on a dry plateau with the Sierra de Guadarrama as a blue-white wall to the north. That height explains the light, which is hard and clear, and the winters, which can be sharp, and the habit of the place, which is to stay up very late. The city was a modest town until 1561, when Philip II moved his court here, more or less because it was in the middle of Spain, and it has been the capital ever since. Everything grand about the centre, the palace, the Plaza Mayor and the Prado, grew out of that decision.
Read the complete Madrid write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Madrid is where the day begins. Next is University and Historic Precinct of Alcalá.
Alcalá de Henares has a talent for producing writers. Miguel de Cervantes was born here in 1547, and a house museum in the old town commemorates him. The university, founded by Cardinal Cisneros in 1499, was one of the earliest planned university towns in Europe and a model for institutions in the Americas, and its Renaissance and Baroque buildings, with their stone façades and courtyards, are the core of the UNESCO listing that Alcalá received in 1998 for its university and historic precinct. The Paraninfo, the ceremonial hall, is where the Cervantes Prize is presented each year.
Read the complete University and Historic Precinct of Alcalá write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
University and Historic Precinct of Alcalá comes up 32 km in. Next is University and Historic Precinct of Alcalá.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete University and Historic Precinct of Alcalá write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
65 km in you reach University and Historic Precinct of Alcalá. Next is Monastery and Site of the Escurial.
Philip II began the monastery of San Lorenzo de El Escorial in 1563 and it was finished in 1584, a short time for a building of its size. It sits on the southern slope of the Sierra de Guadarrama, about fifty kilometres north-west of Madrid, and the two towns beside it, San Lorenzo de El Escorial and El Escorial, are small, tidy and slightly prosperous, living partly off the building that gave them their name.
Read the complete Monastery and Site of the Escurial write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Monastery and Site of the Escurial, about halfway. Next is Palace.
Philip II wanted a monastery, a palace, a royal tomb and a college all in one building, and in the 1560s he got it, in the shadow of the Sierra de Guadarrama. The Royal Site of San Lorenzo de El Escorial took about twenty years to build, under the architects Juan de Herrera and Juan Bautista de Toledo, and it is made of pale grey granite, severe and symmetrical, with slate spires and almost no decoration outside. The king had vowed to build a monastery to St Lawrence after a victory over the French at St Quentin in 1557, and the plan of the building is said to echo the gridiron on which the saint was martyred.
Read the complete Palace write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Palace sits at 130 km, about halfway. Next is back through Monastery and Site of the Escurial.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Monastery and Site of the Escurial write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Monastery and Site of the Escurial comes up 162 km in. Next is back through University and Historic Precinct of Alcalá.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete University and Historic Precinct of Alcalá write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
194 km in you reach back through University and Historic Precinct of Alcalá. Next is back through University and Historic Precinct of Alcalá.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete University and Historic Precinct of Alcalá write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through University and Historic Precinct of Alcalá, late in the day. Next is Madrid.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Madrid write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 225 km.
Madrid → University and Historic Precinct of Alcalá is 39 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
University and Historic Precinct of Alcalá → Monastery and Site of the Escurial is 91 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Monastery and Site of the Escurial → back through University and Historic Precinct of Alcalá is 91 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through University and Historic Precinct of Alcalá → Madrid is 39 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.