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.
356 km from Genoa to Genoa, about 6 h 07 of riding. On the way it passes Canelli and Asti Spumante, Grinzane Cavour Castle, Castello di Racconigi and back through Grinzane Cavour Castle. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
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 about 97 km into the recorded legs. 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.
about 132 km into the recorded legs you reach Grinzane Cavour Castle. Next is Castello di Racconigi.
Racconigi is a small town on the plain south of Turin, in Piedmont, surrounded by fields of maize and rice and lines of poplars. It is dominated by its castle, a grand residence of the House of Savoy, which ruled Piedmont and later Italy. Originally a medieval fortress, it was transformed over the centuries into a palace, with Baroque and neoclassical façades, and surrounded by a vast park with lakes, woods and a farm. The castle is part of the UNESCO-listed Residences of the Royal House of Savoy, inscribed in 1997.
Read the complete Castello di Racconigi write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Castello di Racconigi, 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 208 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 about 259 km into the recorded legs. 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 97 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Canelli and Asti Spumante → Grinzane Cavour Castle is 35 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Grinzane Cavour Castle → Castello di Racconigi is 46 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Castello di Racconigi → back through Grinzane Cavour Castle is 46 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 35 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 98 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.