Why this ride
A 319 km round trip from Cerveteri - roughly 6 h 34 in the saddle. The stops in between: Monte Raschio, Monte Cimino, Teatro Nuovo Gian Carlo Menotti and back through Monte Cimino. The line favours views over speed.
CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
Cerveteri and Teatro Nuovo Gian Carlo Menotti
Plan this ride
- Recorded distance
- 319 km
- Riding-time estimate
- 6 h 34
- Journey
- Recorded itinerary
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.
Waypoint introductions and full write-ups
1. Cerveteri
Cerveteri was the Etruscan city of Caere, one of the richest and most powerful in Italy in the seventh and sixth centuries before Christ, and its dead lie in houses. The Banditaccia necropolis, on a ridge outside the modern town, is a city of tombs: round mounds of earth on stone drums, laid out along streets and squares, each containing rooms cut in the soft volcanic rock to look like homes, with beds, benches, columns and carved ceilings. The Tomb of the Reliefs, with stucco images of household objects, shows how the Etruscans pictured the afterlife. UNESCO listed the necropolises of Cerveteri and Tarquinia together in 2004.
Read the complete Cerveteri write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Cerveteri is where the day begins. Next is Monte Raschio.
2. Monte Raschio
Beech trees usually need altitude and cool weather in central Italy, so it is a surprise to find a beech forest at only about five hundred metres on Monte Raschio, a low volcanic hill near Oriolo Romano, north-west of Rome. The forest survives here thanks to a local microclimate, with humidity from Lake Bracciano and the volcanic soils, and it is part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site of the Ancient and Primeval Beech Forests of the Carpathians and Other Regions of Europe, a site that spans many countries.
Read the complete Monte Raschio write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Monte Raschio comes up about 31 km into the recorded legs. Next is Monte Cimino.
3. Monte Cimino
Monte Cimino is the highest point of the Cimini hills, an old volcanic range rising to just over a thousand metres between Viterbo and the Tiber valley in northern Lazio. Its top is clothed in one of the most beautiful beech forests in Italy, unusually low for beech in this latitude, and UNESCO counts these trees among Europe's ancient beech forests. On a hot summer day, climbing into its shade from the baking plain feels like entering a cathedral.
Read the complete Monte Cimino write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
about 78 km into the recorded legs you reach Monte Cimino. Next is Teatro Nuovo Gian Carlo Menotti.
4. Teatro Nuovo Gian Carlo Menotti
Gian Carlo Menotti was an Italian-born composer who made his career in America, and in 1958 he decided that Spoleto, a small hill town in Umbria, would be the right home for a festival that brought together artists from both sides of the Atlantic. That is the origin of the Festival dei Due Mondi, the Festival of Two Worlds, which still fills the town with opera, theatre, dance and music every year in late June and July. The theatre that bears his name, the Teatro Nuovo, was built in the nineteenth century and is the main stage, a handsome horseshoe with gilt boxes and a painted ceiling.
Read the complete Teatro Nuovo Gian Carlo Menotti write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Teatro Nuovo Gian Carlo Menotti, about halfway. Next is back through Monte Cimino.
5. back through Monte Cimino
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Monte Cimino write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
back through Monte Cimino sits at 184 km, about halfway. Next is back through Monte Raschio.
6. back through Monte Raschio
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Monte Raschio write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
back through Monte Raschio comes up about 287 km into the recorded legs. Next is Cerveteri.
7. Cerveteri
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Cerveteri write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Cerveteri closes the day.
Leg by leg
Cerveteri to Monte Raschio
Cerveteri → Monte Raschio is 31 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Monte Raschio to Monte Cimino
Monte Raschio → Monte Cimino is 47 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Monte Cimino to Teatro Nuovo Gian Carlo Menotti
Monte Cimino → Teatro Nuovo Gian Carlo Menotti is 81 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Teatro Nuovo Gian Carlo Menotti to back through Monte Cimino
Teatro Nuovo Gian Carlo Menotti → back through Monte Cimino is 81 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Monte Cimino to back through Monte Raschio
back through Monte Cimino → back through Monte Raschio is 47 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Monte Raschio to Cerveteri
back through Monte Raschio → Cerveteri is 31 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.