CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
The recorded total and the leg detail need reconciliation. Inspect the leg notes before using this record for timing or navigation. 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 Genoa it runs 314 km to Genoa; allow about 5 h 34 of riding. It goes by way of Canelli and Asti Spumante, Grinzane Cavour Castle, Castello di Govone and back through Grinzane Cavour Castle. A steady touring day rather than a sprint.
Speed drops and stays down. Park rather than crawl through. 30 km through ground somebody thought worth listing. The road passes it rather than bypassing it.
Genoa never tried to be pretty in the way Florence or Venice did. It tried to be rich, and succeeded, and the Strade Nuove, the new streets laid out in the sixteenth century, are the proof. The city's banking families, who financed the Spanish crown for decades, built palaces along Via Garibaldi, Via Balbi and Via Cairoli, and they did it on a steep, crowded slope where there was no room for gardens, so the grandeur is stacked into courtyards, loggias and monumental staircases. The palaces were registered in the Rolli, official lists that told the republic which houses should host visiting kings and cardinals, a bit like a medieval hotel guide for diplomats. UNESCO listed the system in 2006.
Read the complete Genoa: Le Strade Nuove and the system of t write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Genoa: Le Strade Nuove and the system of t is where the day begins. Next is Canelli and Asti Spumante.
Under the streets of Canelli runs a second town, made of brick tunnels and vaulted galleries cut into the hillside, where for well over a century sparkling wine has rested in the cool and the dark. The locals call them the underground cathedrals, and they are the reason this small Piedmontese town is part of the UNESCO listing of the vineyard landscapes of Langhe-Roero and Monferrato. Canelli was one of the places where Italian sparkling wine was pioneered in the nineteenth century, using the local Moscato grape, and the town's big wine houses still welcome visitors into their cellars by appointment.
Read the complete Canelli and Asti Spumante write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Canelli and Asti Spumante comes up 48 km in. Next is Grinzane Cavour Castle.
Count Camillo Benso di Cavour, the man who more or less engineered the unification of Italy, spent years as mayor of this little Langhe village before he went on to bigger things, and the square brick castle on its knoll still carries his name. He experimented with winemaking here too, at a time when Barolo was still finding its modern form, so the building sits at a neat crossroads of Piedmontese politics and Piedmontese wine.
Read the complete Grinzane Cavour Castle write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
96 km in you reach Grinzane Cavour Castle. Next is Castello di Govone.
Govone is a village of eight hundred people in the Roero, the hilly country on the left bank of the Tanaro across from the Langhe, and it is dominated by a palace far too grand for its size. The Castello di Govone was a residence of the House of Savoy, rebuilt in the baroque style in the eighteenth century, and it is one of the Residences of the Royal House of Savoy inscribed together as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Inside are rooms decorated with Chinese wallpaper, and outside, terraced gardens look down over the valley.
Read the complete Castello di Govone write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Castello di Govone, about halfway. Next is back through Grinzane Cavour Castle.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Grinzane Cavour Castle write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Grinzane Cavour Castle sits at 191 km, about halfway. Next is back through Canelli and Asti Spumante.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Canelli and Asti Spumante write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Canelli and Asti Spumante comes up 239 km in. Next is Genoa: Le Strade Nuove and the system of t.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Genoa: Le Strade Nuove and the system of t write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Genoa: Le Strade Nuove and the system of t closes the day.
Genoa: Le Strade Nuove and the system of t → Canelli and Asti Spumante is 88 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Canelli and Asti Spumante → Grinzane Cavour Castle is 30 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Grinzane Cavour Castle → Castello di Govone is 26 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Castello di Govone → back through Grinzane Cavour Castle is 26 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Grinzane Cavour Castle → back through Canelli and Asti Spumante is 30 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Canelli and Asti Spumante → Genoa: Le Strade Nuove and the system of t is 88 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.