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 Ferrara it runs 438 km to Ferrara; allow about 7 h 37 of riding. The stops in between: Università e Accademia, Vena del Gesso Romagnola - M.te Penzola, Baraccano and Vena del Gesso Romagnola - M.te Casino. It suits an unhurried touring pace.
Ferrara is a city built for walking and cycling, with flat streets, a ring of Renaissance walls nine kilometres long, and so many bicycles that it is called the city of bicycles. In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, under the Este family, it was one of the great courts of Renaissance Italy, and the Estense castle, with its moat and drawbridges, still dominates the centre. The city's Renaissance planning, especially the Herculean Addition, a new quarter laid out in the late fifteenth century, led historians to call it the first modern city in Europe, and UNESCO has inscribed Ferrara and the Po Delta as a World Heritage Site.
Read the complete Ferrara write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Ferrara is where the day begins. Next is Università e Accademia.
Walk into the courtyard of the Archiginnasio in Bologna and you walk into a gallery of coats of arms. Thousands of them cover the walls and ceilings, painted and carved by students over the centuries, each one a small act of vanity from a young man far from home. This was the main seat of the University of Bologna, which claims to be the oldest university in the world, founded in 1088. Students from all over Europe gathered here to study law, and the city got rich and proud on them. Dante, Petrarch and Copernicus are among the names said to have passed through, and the university's first women professors arrived here long before most of Europe allowed such a thing.
Read the complete Università e Accademia write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Università e Accademia comes up about 48 km into the recorded legs. Next is Vena del Gesso Romagnola - M.te Penzola, 45 km on.
The Santerno valley climbs south from Imola into the Apennines toward Tuscany, and about fifteen kilometres up, the river cuts through a ridge of shining grey-white rock. This is the western end of the Vena del Gesso Romagnola, the gypsum vein that runs across this part of Romagna, and Monte Penzola rises above the village of Borgo Tossignano, with Fontanelice and Casalfiumanese nearby.
Read the complete Vena del Gesso Romagnola - M.te Penzola write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 104 km into the recorded legs you reach Vena del Gesso Romagnola - M.te Penzola. Next is Baraccano.
Baraccano is not a village, it is a corner of Bologna: a gate in the old thirteenth-century walls where the Via Santo Stefano runs out of the centre. The name comes from the barbican that once defended it. Next to the gate stands the small sanctuary of the Madonna del Baraccano, a Renaissance church whose fresco of the Virgin drew pilgrims after a reported miracle, and beside it a lovely little courtyard, a place most visitors walk straight past on the way to the Two Towers.
Read the complete Baraccano write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Baraccano, about halfway. Next is Vena del Gesso Romagnola - M.te Casino, 46 km on.
Crystals the size of a hand catch the sun along the Vena del Gesso, a ridge of selenite gypsum that runs for some twenty-five kilometres across the hills of Romagna, from the Sillaro valley to the Lamone. The rock formed millions of years ago when the Mediterranean dried up and its salts were deposited, and it has since been carved by water into caves, sinkholes and blind valleys. In 2023, UNESCO listed the evaporite karst and caves of the northern Apennines, and the Vena del Gesso is the heart of it. Monte Casino is one of the peaks on the ridge, near Borgo Tossignano and Casola Valsenio.
Read the complete Vena del Gesso Romagnola - M.te Casino write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Vena del Gesso Romagnola - M.te Casino sits at 183 km, about halfway. Next is back through Baraccano.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Baraccano write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Baraccano comes up about 277 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Vena del Gesso Romagnola - M.te Penzola, 46 km on.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Vena del Gesso Romagnola - M.te Penzola write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 333 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Vena del Gesso Romagnola - M.te Penzola. Next is back through Università e Accademia.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Università e Accademia write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Università e Accademia, late in the day. Next is Ferrara.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Ferrara write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 438 km.
Ferrara → Università e Accademia is 48 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Università e Accademia → Vena del Gesso Romagnola - M.te Penzola is 56 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Vena del Gesso Romagnola - M.te Penzola → Baraccano is 58 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Baraccano → Vena del Gesso Romagnola - M.te Casino is 57 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Vena del Gesso Romagnola - M.te Casino → back through Baraccano is 58 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Baraccano → back through Vena del Gesso Romagnola - M.te Penzola is 56 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Vena del Gesso Romagnola - M.te Penzola → back through Università e Accademia is 57 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Università e Accademia → Ferrara is 49 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.