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 419 km to Ferrara; allow about 7 h 09 of riding. The stops in between: Università e Accademia, Vena del Gesso Romagnola - M.te Penzola, Villa de Cafaggiolo and Villa de Poggio a Caiano. The line favours views over speed.
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For about 41 km this is Chiantigiana Wine Road, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
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, 48 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 Villa de Cafaggiolo.
In the green bowl of the Mugello, north of Florence, the Medici family kept a house long before they ruled the city. Cafaggiolo was an old family property, and around the middle of the fifteenth century Cosimo the Elder had the architect Michelozzo transform it into a fortified country villa, with battlements, a tower and a moat, a cross between a castle and a farmhouse. Lorenzo the Magnificent spent time here as a boy, and the villa became a favourite retreat for hunting and escaping the plague in the city. It is one of the Medici Villas and Gardens in Tuscany listed by UNESCO, and visits depend on current restoration and opening arrangements, so check before you arrive.
Read the complete Villa de Cafaggiolo write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Villa de Cafaggiolo, about halfway. Next is Villa de Poggio a Caiano.
Of all the Medici villas, Poggio a Caiano is the one that changed architecture. Lorenzo the Magnificent commissioned it from Giuliano da Sangallo in the 1480s, and the result was something new: a country house raised on an arcaded platform, with a portico topped by a classical pediment, the first time a temple front had been put on a private villa since antiquity. Palladio would develop the idea in the Veneto decades later. Inside, the great hall is decorated with frescoes by Andrea del Sarto, Pontormo and others, and Pontormo's lunette of Vertumnus and Pomona, with its lazy figures lounging on a wall, is one of the most charming paintings of the Renaissance. The villa is part of the UNESCO listing of the Medici Villas and Gardens in Tuscany.
Read the complete Villa de Poggio a Caiano write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Villa de Poggio a Caiano sits at 189 km, about halfway. Next is back through Villa de Cafaggiolo.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Villa de Cafaggiolo write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Villa de Cafaggiolo comes up about 250 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Vena del Gesso Romagnola - M.te Penzola, 48 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 313 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 419 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 → Villa de Cafaggiolo is 64 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Villa de Cafaggiolo → Villa de Poggio a Caiano is 41 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Villa de Poggio a Caiano → back through Villa de Cafaggiolo is 41 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Villa de Cafaggiolo → back through Vena del Gesso Romagnola - M.te Penzola is 63 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 48 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.