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 Ávila it runs 442 km to Ávila; allow about 6 h 37 of riding. The stops in between: Subsidiary building \La Casita del Infante, Old Town of Segovia and its Aqueduct, Hayedos de Ayllon - Montejo and back through Old Town of Segovia and its Aqueduct. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,350 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Speed drops and stays down. Park rather than crawl through. 55 km through ground somebody thought worth listing. The road passes it rather than bypassing it.
Ávila has a way of making you feel as though the walls are the only thing holding the past in place, but San Martín reminds you that the neighbourhoods around the churches were once lively parishes of their own. The city had many such parishes in the Middle Ages, each with its own church, its own priest and its own sense of rivalry with the next. Today they mostly sit quietly, built of the same grey-gold granite as the walls, and a walk from one to the next shows how the town's life was once organised.
Read the complete Church of San Martín write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Church of San Martín is where the day begins. Next is Subsidiary building \La Casita del Infante.
Most people who come to San Lorenzo de El Escorial only see the monastery, that vast granite grid Philip II raised in the second half of the sixteenth century as palace, basilica, library and royal tomb all at once. A short walk below it, through terraced gardens and woodland, sits something far more human in scale. The Casita del Infante, also called the Casita de Arriba, was designed by Juan de Villanueva in the late eighteenth century for the Infante Gabriel, a son of Carlos III, as a place to retreat, play music and escape the endless etiquette of court. Its sibling, the Casita del Príncipe, lies down the hill near the town of El Escorial and was built for the future Carlos IV.
Read the complete Subsidiary building \La Casita del Infante write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Subsidiary building \La Casita del Infante comes up about 74 km into the recorded legs. Next is Old Town of Segovia and its Aqueduct.
The Roman aqueduct of Segovia strides through the middle of the city on two tiers of granite arches, nearly thirty metres high at its tallest point, built without a drop of mortar, the stones held together by their own weight. It was probably built around the end of the first century or early second century AD, and it carried water to the city until well into modern times. Standing beneath it in the Plaza del Azoguejo, with traffic and people flowing around the base, you can only marvel at the skill of the engineers who built it almost two thousand years ago. The old town and the aqueduct were listed by UNESCO in 1985.
Read the complete Old Town of Segovia and its Aqueduct write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 133 km into the recorded legs you reach Old Town of Segovia and its Aqueduct. Next is Hayedos de Ayllon - Montejo.
Beech trees at the southern edge of their range look different from the northern kind, and anyone who has stood in the Hayedo de Montejo in October will tell you why. This is a small forest on the northern slopes of the Sierra del Rincón, in the far north of the Madrid region, above the village of Montejo de la Sierra, and it is the southernmost beech wood in Europe of its type. It survives in a cool, damp pocket left over from the last Ice Age, and in 2017 it was added to the UNESCO list of ancient and primeval beech forests of the Carpathians and other regions of Europe.
Read the complete Hayedos de Ayllon - Montejo write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Hayedos de Ayllon - Montejo, about halfway. Next is back through Old Town of Segovia and its Aqueduct.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Old Town of Segovia and its Aqueduct write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Old Town of Segovia and its Aqueduct sits at 255 km, about halfway. Next is back through Subsidiary building \La Casita del Infante.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Subsidiary building \La Casita del Infante write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Subsidiary building \La Casita del Infante comes up about 367 km into the recorded legs. Next is Church of San Martín.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Church of San Martín write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Church of San Martín closes the day.
Church of San Martín → Subsidiary building \La Casita del Infante is 74 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Subsidiary building \La Casita del Infante → Old Town of Segovia and its Aqueduct is 59 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Old Town of Segovia and its Aqueduct → Hayedos de Ayllon - Montejo is 87 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Hayedos de Ayllon - Montejo → back through Old Town of Segovia and its Aqueduct is 92 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Old Town of Segovia and its Aqueduct → back through Subsidiary building \La Casita del Infante is 55 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Subsidiary building \La Casita del Infante → Church of San Martín is 75 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.