Mille Miglia Historic Route Core: Ferrara to Rome

Waypoint introductions and full write-ups

1. 1. Ferrara

   Ferrara is a city built for walking and cycling, with flat streets, a ring of Renaissance walls nine kilometres long, and so many bicycles that it is called the city of bicycles. In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, under the Este family, it was one of the great courts of Renaissance Italy, and the Estense castle, with its moat and drawbridges, still dominates the centre. The city's Renaissance planning, especially the Herculean Addition, a new quarter laid out in the late fifteenth century, led historians to call it the first modern city in Europe, and UNESCO has inscribed Ferrara and the Po Delta as a World Heritage Site.

   Read the complete Ferrara write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Ferrara is where the day begins. Next is Ravenna.

2. 2. Ravenna

   Ravenna is a town that was once the capital of an empire, and then largely forgotten, which is why so much of it survives. In 402 AD the Western Roman emperor Honorius moved his court here, because the marshes around it were easier to defend than Rome. After Rome fell, the Ostrogoth king Theodoric ruled from Ravenna, and then the Byzantine emperor Justinian reconquered it, and left behind the churches whose mosaics are among the glories of early Christian art. Eight of its early Christian monuments are on the UNESCO World Heritage list.

   Read the complete Ravenna write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Ravenna comes up about 88 km into the recorded legs. Next is Rome.

3. 3. Rome

   Rome is the end of the line for the Mille Miglia, or at least the halfway mark, because the old race ran out from Brescia to Rome and back again, a thousand Italian miles in all, which is where the name comes from. It ran from 1927 until 1957, mostly through towns and villages with the roads left open and crowds standing at the kerb, and the drivers flew down the Via Cassia and through the Apennine passes at speeds that make the whole thing seem barely believable now. It ended after a crash in 1957 that killed spectators, and was later revived as a rolling classic-car parade, which still comes through Rome every spring.

   Read the complete Rome 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 453 km.