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.
374 km from Ávila to Ávila, about 5 h 08 of riding. It goes by way of Subsidiary building \La Casita del Infante, Old Town of Segovia and its Aqueduct, Monastery and Site of the Escurial 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 suits an unhurried touring pace.
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.
Teresa de Cepeda y Ahumada entered the Convent of the Incarnation in Ávila in 1535, when she was about twenty, and she stayed for twenty-seven years. The convent was large, comfortable and rather sociable, with visitors in the parlour and a lively social life among the nuns, and it was only after decades of illness, prayer and unease that she left in 1562 to found a small, strict house of her own, San José, the first of her reformed Carmelite convents. She became Saint Teresa of Jesus, one of the great writers of the Spanish language, and her cell and the rooms where she lived are still shown in the convent, a short distance outside the old walls.
Read the complete Convent of La Encarnación write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Convent of La Encarnación 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 73 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 132 km into the recorded legs you reach Old Town of Segovia and its Aqueduct. Next is Monastery and Site of the Escurial.
Philip II began the monastery of San Lorenzo de El Escorial in 1563 and it was finished in 1584, a short time for a building of its size. It sits on the southern slope of the Sierra de Guadarrama, about fifty kilometres north-west of Madrid, and the two towns beside it, San Lorenzo de El Escorial and El Escorial, are small, tidy and slightly prosperous, living partly off the building that gave them their name.
Read the complete Monastery and Site of the Escurial write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Monastery and Site of the Escurial, 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 229 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 299 km into the recorded legs. Next is Convent of La Encarnación.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Convent of La Encarnación write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Convent of La Encarnación closes the day.
Convent of La Encarnación → Subsidiary building \La Casita del Infante is 73 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 → Monastery and Site of the Escurial is 54 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Monastery and Site of the Escurial → back through Old Town of Segovia and its Aqueduct is 58 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
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 → Convent of La Encarnación is 74 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.