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.
A 437 km round trip from Bologna - roughly 8 h 00 in the saddle. It goes by way of Vena del Gesso Romagnola - M.te Penzola, Villa de Cafaggiolo, Villa de Poggio a Caiano and Historic Centre of San Gimignano. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For 34 km this is Chiantigiana Wine Road, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
Baraccano is not a village, it is a corner of Bologna: a gate in the old thirteenth-century walls where the Via Santo Stefano runs out of the centre. The name comes from the barbican that once defended it. Next to the gate stands the small sanctuary of the Madonna del Baraccano, a Renaissance church whose fresco of the Virgin drew pilgrims after a reported miracle, and beside it a lovely little courtyard, a place most visitors walk straight past on the way to the Two Towers.
Read the complete Baraccano write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Baraccano is where the day begins. Next is Vena del Gesso Romagnola - M.te Penzola, 45 km on.
The Santerno valley climbs south from Imola into the Apennines toward Tuscany, and about fifteen kilometres up, the river cuts through a ridge of shining grey-white rock. This is the western end of the Vena del Gesso Romagnola, the gypsum vein that runs across this part of Romagna, and Monte Penzola rises above the village of Borgo Tossignano, with Fontanelice and Casalfiumanese nearby.
Read the complete Vena del Gesso Romagnola - M.te Penzola write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Vena del Gesso Romagnola - M.te Penzola comes up 45 km in. Next is Villa de Cafaggiolo.
In the green bowl of the Mugello, north of Florence, the Medici family kept a house long before they ruled the city. Cafaggiolo was an old family property, and around the middle of the fifteenth century Cosimo the Elder had the architect Michelozzo transform it into a fortified country villa, with battlements, a tower and a moat, a cross between a castle and a farmhouse. Lorenzo the Magnificent spent time here as a boy, and the villa became a favourite retreat for hunting and escaping the plague in the city. It is one of the Medici Villas and Gardens in Tuscany listed by UNESCO, and visits depend on current restoration and opening arrangements, so check before you arrive.
Read the complete Villa de Cafaggiolo write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
91 km in you reach Villa de Cafaggiolo. Next is Villa de Poggio a Caiano.
Of all the Medici villas, Poggio a Caiano is the one that changed architecture. Lorenzo the Magnificent commissioned it from Giuliano da Sangallo in the 1480s, and the result was something new: a country house raised on an arcaded platform, with a portico topped by a classical pediment, the first time a temple front had been put on a private villa since antiquity. Palladio would develop the idea in the Veneto decades later. Inside, the great hall is decorated with frescoes by Andrea del Sarto, Pontormo and others, and Pontormo's lunette of Vertumnus and Pomona, with its lazy figures lounging on a wall, is one of the most charming paintings of the Renaissance. The villa is part of the UNESCO listing of the Medici Villas and Gardens in Tuscany.
Read the complete Villa de Poggio a Caiano write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Villa de Poggio a Caiano, about halfway. 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.
Historic Centre of San Gimignano sits at 181 km, about halfway. Next is back through Villa de Poggio a Caiano.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Villa de Poggio a Caiano write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Villa de Poggio a Caiano comes up 226 km in. Next is back through Villa de Cafaggiolo.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Villa de Cafaggiolo write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
272 km in you reach back through Villa de Cafaggiolo. Next is back through Vena del Gesso Romagnola - M.te Penzola, 45 km on.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Vena del Gesso Romagnola - M.te Penzola write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Vena del Gesso Romagnola - M.te Penzola, late in the day. Next is Baraccano.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Baraccano write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 437 km.
Baraccano → Vena del Gesso Romagnola - M.te Penzola is 39 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Vena del Gesso Romagnola - M.te Penzola → Villa de Cafaggiolo is 56 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Villa de Cafaggiolo → Villa de Poggio a Caiano is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Villa de Poggio a Caiano → Historic Centre of San Gimignano is 52 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Historic Centre of San Gimignano → back through Villa de Poggio a Caiano is 52 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Villa de Poggio a Caiano → back through Villa de Cafaggiolo is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Villa de Cafaggiolo → back through Vena del Gesso Romagnola - M.te Penzola is 56 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Vena del Gesso Romagnola - M.te Penzola → Baraccano is 39 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.