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 Totolac it runs 199 km to Totolac; allow about 3 h 27 of riding. The stops in between: Temple and Former Convent of Saint Michael, Historic Centre of Puebla, Temple and Former Convent of Saint Andrew and back through Historic Centre of Puebla. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 2,850 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available.
Tlaxcala has an unusual place in Mexican history, because its people were the main allies of Hernán Cortés in the conquest of the Aztec empire. The Tlaxcalans had resisted Aztec expansion for years, and when the Spanish arrived in 1519 they chose to fight with them rather than against them. In return, they received privileges, and the Franciscan friars who arrived soon after chose Tlaxcala as their first base on the mainland. The monastery and its church, begun in the sixteenth century, still stand above the town, a plain, massive building with a fine wooden ceiling in Moorish style.
Read the complete Franciscan Ensemble of the Monastery and C write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Franciscan Ensemble of the Monastery and C is where the day begins. Next is Temple and Former Convent of Saint Michael.
Behind a crenellated wall in the middle of Huejotzingo lies one of the earliest Christian buildings in the Americas: the Franciscan convent of San Miguel Arcángel, built in the decades after the Spanish conquest on the lower slopes of the volcanoes west of Puebla. The friars arrived here within a few years of the fall of Tenochtitlan, and the church, convent and walled atrium they raised are a textbook example of how the missionaries worked, with great open courtyards where crowds of indigenous converts could gather for teaching and mass. Huejotzingo is part of the UNESCO site of the Earliest Sixteenth-Century Monasteries on the Slopes of Popocatépetl, listed in 1994.
Read the complete Temple and Former Convent of Saint Michael write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Temple and Former Convent of Saint Michael comes up about 39 km into the recorded legs. Next is Historic Centre of Puebla.
Puebla was founded in 1531 as a Spanish city from the start, laid out on a grid between the volcanoes and the road from Veracruz to Mexico City, and it grew into one of the richest towns of New Spain. Its historic centre is a World Heritage site, and walking through it you see why: dozens of churches, palaces and mansions, many covered in the hand-painted Talavera tiles for which the city is still famous. The cathedral, with its two tall towers, dominates the main square, and a few blocks away the Rosary Chapel of the church of Santo Domingo is a dazzling space of gilded stucco and carved angels that has to be seen to be believed.
Read the complete Historic Centre of Puebla write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 68 km into the recorded legs you reach Historic Centre of Puebla. Next is Temple and Former Convent of Saint Andrew.
Calpan is a small town on the lower slopes of Popocatépetl, and in its centre stands a sixteenth-century Franciscan convent that is one of the masterpieces of early colonial art in Mexico. Built soon after the Spanish conquest, when friars were racing to convert the Indigenous population, the church is set within a huge walled atrium where crowds could gather for open-air Mass. In each corner of the atrium stands a posa, a small chapel used for processions, and the four posas at Calpan are covered in astonishing carved reliefs: the Last Judgment, the Annunciation, saints and symbols, carved by Indigenous craftsmen who mixed European designs with their own style.
Read the complete Temple and Former Convent of Saint Andrew write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Temple and Former Convent of Saint Andrew, about halfway. Next is back through Historic Centre of Puebla.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Historic Centre of Puebla write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Historic Centre of Puebla sits at 141 km, about halfway. Next is back through Temple and Former Convent of Saint Michael.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Temple and Former Convent of Saint Michael write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Temple and Former Convent of Saint Michael comes up about 159 km into the recorded legs. Next is Franciscan Ensemble of the Monastery and C.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Franciscan Ensemble of the Monastery and C write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Franciscan Ensemble of the Monastery and C closes the day.
Franciscan Ensemble of the Monastery and C → Temple and Former Convent of Saint Michael is 39 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Temple and Former Convent of Saint Michael → Historic Centre of Puebla is 29 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Historic Centre of Puebla → Temple and Former Convent of Saint Andrew is 31 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Temple and Former Convent of Saint Andrew → back through Historic Centre of Puebla is 31 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Historic Centre of Puebla → back through Temple and Former Convent of Saint Michael is 29 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Temple and Former Convent of Saint Michael → Franciscan Ensemble of the Monastery and C is 40 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.