Why this ride
From Mariana it runs 168 km to Tiradentes; allow about 4 h of riding. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,150 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. A steady touring day rather than a sprint.
CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
Estrada Real Core Route: Mariana to Tiradentes
Plan this ride
- Recorded distance
- 168 km
- Riding-time estimate
- 3 h 13
- Journey
- One way; return travel is separate
Distance and timing basis
Ordered leg totals agree within rounding. Stop distances are approximate sums of rounded legs. 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.
Scenic road chapters
Estrada Real Core Route
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For about 11 km this is Estrada Real Core Route, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
Chapter facts
- Length
- 11 km
- Named road
- Estrada Real Core Route
Waypoint introductions and full write-ups
1. Mariana
Mariana is where Minas Gerais begins, at least on paper. It was the first town the Portuguese founded in the gold country, in 1696, and later the first capital and first bishopric of the whole captaincy. It was named for Maria Anna of Austria, the queen of João V, which tells you who the town was meant to impress. Today it sits at around seven hundred metres in a bowl of green, forested hills, a calm university and mining town of some forty-five thousand people, and it is the natural place to begin the Estrada Real, the old colonial road along which gold and diamonds went to the coast and everything else came back up.
Read the complete Mariana write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Mariana is where the day begins. Next is Ouro Preto.
2. Ouro Preto
Ouro Preto means black gold, after the dark, iron-stained nuggets that set off the rush here at the end of the seventeenth century. For a while this town, then called Vila Rica, was among the richest and most populous places in the Americas, and its money went into churches, bridges, fountains and the steep, tilted streets you will be climbing and descending. UNESCO listed it in 1980, among the very first Brazilian sites, and walking in the centre you can see why: hardly a modern building disturbs the skyline of terracotta roofs and whitewashed towers climbing the hillsides.
Read the complete Ouro Preto write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Ouro Preto comes up about 11 km into the recorded legs. Next is Tiradentes.
3. Tiradentes
Tiradentes is a small colonial town in the hills of Minas Gerais, in south-eastern Brazil, where the paving is cobbled stone, the church is full of gold, and the streets run uphill toward the Serra de Sao Jose. It has about four and a half thousand people and a calendar crowded with festivals, and the bigger town next door, Sao Joao del Rei, with nearly eighty thousand, is where you find supermarkets and a wider choice of fuel stations.
Read the complete Tiradentes write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
The route ends here after 168 km.
Leg by leg
Mariana to Ouro Preto
Mariana → Ouro Preto is 11 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Ouro Preto to Tiradentes
Ouro Preto → Tiradentes is 157 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.