CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
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.
From Turin it runs 211 km to Turin; allow about 3 h 57 of riding. The stops in between: Castello di Racconigi, Castello di Pollenzo, Canelli and Asti Spumante and back through Castello di Pollenzo. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
The Castello del Valentino stands on the left bank of the Po in the middle of Turin, in a park where students lie about on the grass and rowing crews slide past on the river. It looks like a French château, with pitched grey roofs, corner towers and a courtyard open to the water, and that is no accident. It was built for the dukes of Savoy and transformed in the seventeenth century by Christine of France, widow of Duke Victor Amadeus I, who wanted something of home in her adopted capital. Later it became a school of engineering and then a faculty of architecture, which gives the courtyard a pleasant, slightly scruffy academic life.
Read the complete Castello del Valentino write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Castello del Valentino is where the day begins. Next is Castello di Racconigi.
Racconigi is a small town on the plain south of Turin, in Piedmont, surrounded by fields of maize and rice and lines of poplars. It is dominated by its castle, a grand residence of the House of Savoy, which ruled Piedmont and later Italy. Originally a medieval fortress, it was transformed over the centuries into a palace, with Baroque and neoclassical façades, and surrounded by a vast park with lakes, woods and a farm. The castle is part of the UNESCO-listed Residences of the Royal House of Savoy, inscribed in 1997.
Read the complete Castello di Racconigi write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Castello di Racconigi comes up about 38 km into the recorded legs. Next is Castello di Pollenzo.
The village of Pollenzo was a Roman town, Pollentia, long before it was a Savoy estate, and in 402 a Roman army under Stilicho fought Alaric's Visigoths nearby in one of the last great battles of the Western Empire. Today the name means food. The castle and the neo-Gothic agricultural complex built around it by King Carlo Alberto in the nineteenth century, the Agenzia, now house the University of Gastronomic Sciences, founded by the Slow Food movement, which was born in nearby Bra. The estate is part of the UNESCO-listed Residences of the Royal House of Savoy.
Read the complete Castello di Pollenzo write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 67 km into the recorded legs you reach Castello di Pollenzo. Next is Canelli and Asti Spumante.
Under the streets of Canelli runs a second town, made of brick tunnels and vaulted galleries cut into the hillside, where for well over a century sparkling wine has rested in the cool and the dark. The locals call them the underground cathedrals, and they are the reason this small Piedmontese town is part of the UNESCO listing of the vineyard landscapes of Langhe-Roero and Monferrato. Canelli was one of the places where Italian sparkling wine was pioneered in the nineteenth century, using the local Moscato grape, and the town's big wine houses still welcome visitors into their cellars by appointment.
Read the complete Canelli and Asti Spumante write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Canelli and Asti Spumante, about halfway. Next is back through Castello di Pollenzo.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Castello di Pollenzo write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Castello di Pollenzo sits at 144 km, about halfway. Next is back through Castello di Racconigi.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Castello di Racconigi write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Castello di Racconigi comes up about 173 km into the recorded legs. Next is Castello del Valentino.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Castello del Valentino write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Castello del Valentino closes the day.
Castello del Valentino → Castello di Racconigi is 38 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Castello di Racconigi → Castello di Pollenzo is 29 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Castello di Pollenzo → Canelli and Asti Spumante is 38 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Canelli and Asti Spumante → back through Castello di Pollenzo is 39 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Castello di Pollenzo → back through Castello di Racconigi is 29 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Castello di Racconigi → Castello del Valentino is 38 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.