Estancia of Jesús María and Estancia of Alta Gracia
Plan this ride
Recorded distance
196 km
Riding-time estimate
2 h 59
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.
196 km from Jesús María to Jesús María, about 4 h of riding. On the way it passes Jesuit Block, Estancia of Alta Gracia and back through Jesuit Block. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,050 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. The line favours views over speed.
Waypoint introductions and full write-ups
1. Estancia of Jesús María
In the hills north of Cordoba, in Argentina, there is a row of old Jesuit estancias, the ranches that paid for the order's missions and schools in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The one at Jesus Maria dates from 1618, and with the Jesuit Block in Cordoba city and four other estancias, it forms part of a UNESCO World Heritage Site inscribed in 2000. The Jesuits ran these properties as farms, workshops and vineyards, with indigenous and African labour, and they prospered until King Carlos III expelled the order from Spanish territory in 1767.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Estancia of Jesús María is where the day begins. Next is Jesuit Block.
2. Jesuit Block
The oldest university in Argentina is a block in the middle of Córdoba. When the Jesuits arrived in 1599 they began what became the Manzana Jesuítica, a whole city block with a church, a college and a university, and in 1613 they founded the Colegio Máximo, which developed into the Universidad Nacional de Córdoba, one of the oldest in the Americas. The Iglesia de la Compañía, begun in the 1640s and finished some decades later, has a wonderful wooden ceiling shaped like an upturned ship's hull, built by craftsmen who knew about boats, with beams of local timber joined without nails. The block, together with the Jesuit estancias in the countryside, was listed by UNESCO in 2000.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Jesuit Block comes up about 57 km into the recorded legs. Next is Estancia of Alta Gracia.
3. Estancia of Alta Gracia
Alta Gracia sits where the Córdoba plains begin to buckle into the Sierras Chicas, and its Jesuit estancia is the reason the town exists. The Jesuits established the estate in the seventeenth century, and by the eighteenth it was a thriving enterprise: a church, a residence around a cloister, workshops, and an ingenious dam with a reservoir feeding irrigation canals. It was part of the great network of Jesuit properties around Córdoba, collectively a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2000, which funded the university and college in the city.