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 Sassofeltrio it runs 510 km to Sassofeltrio; allow about 9 h 29 of riding. It goes by way of Teatro Angelo Mariani, Sasso Fratino, Medici Villas and Gardens in Tuscany and Historic Centre of San Gimignano. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 800 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It suits an unhurried touring pace.
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For about 66 km this is Chiantigiana Wine Road, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
The hills behind Rimini hide a surprising piece of geology. Around the hamlet of Onferno, in the comune of Gemmano, the ground is made of gypsum, laid down when the Mediterranean dried out millions of years ago and then pushed up into these ridges. Water dissolves gypsum easily, so the landscape is pocked with sinkholes, blind valleys and caves, and the Grotta di Onferno winds for hundreds of metres beneath the village. The name is often linked to inferno, supposedly because vapour rising from the cave mouth in cold weather looked like the breath of hell.
Read the complete Gessi di Onferno write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Gessi di Onferno is where the day begins. Next is Teatro Angelo Mariani.
Sant'Agata Feltria is a small hill town in the upper Marecchia valley, with a castle on a rock, steep streets and one of the oldest wooden theatres in Italy. The Teatro Angelo Mariani dates from the early seventeenth century and has been rebuilt and restored over the centuries, with tiers of wooden boxes painted in soft colours around a small stage. It is named after Angelo Mariani, a nineteenth-century conductor who was a close collaborator of Verdi. The theatre is intimate, seating a few hundred at most, and it still hosts concerts and plays.
Read the complete Teatro Angelo Mariani write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Teatro Angelo Mariani comes up about 52 km into the recorded legs. Next is Sasso Fratino.
Sasso Fratino is a forest you are not allowed to enter, and that is precisely the point. High on the Romagna side of the Apennine ridge, in the national park of the Casentino forests, it was declared Italy's first integral nature reserve in 1959, and since then nature has been left almost entirely to itself. Ancient beech woods cling to steep slopes, with silver fir, maple and ash mixed in, and dead trees are left to rot where they fall, feeding fungi, beetles and birds. In 2017 it became part of the transnational World Heritage listing of ancient beech forests of Europe.
Read the complete Sasso Fratino write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 121 km into the recorded legs you reach Sasso Fratino. Next is Medici Villas and Gardens in Tuscany.
The Medici left behind a necklace of villas around Florence, and the group of them listed by UNESCO in 2013 shows how a banking family turned itself into a ruling dynasty with the help of architecture. Humanists, painters and poets were invited to talk and eat in these gardens, which is where some of the Renaissance really happened.
Read the complete Medici Villas and Gardens in Tuscany write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Medici Villas and Gardens in Tuscany, about halfway. Next is Historic Centre of San Gimignano.
Seen from the surrounding countryside, San Gimignano looks like a medieval Manhattan: a cluster of stone towers rising from a hilltop above vineyards and olive groves in the Val d'Elsa. In its heyday, in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the town had dozens of them, built by rival families as symbols of power and wealth. Fourteen survive, enough to make it one of the most recognisable towns in Italy and a UNESCO World Heritage site since 1990.
Read the complete Historic Centre of San Gimignano write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Historic Centre of San Gimignano sits at 200 km, about halfway. Next is back through Medici Villas and Gardens in Tuscany.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Medici Villas and Gardens in Tuscany write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Medici Villas and Gardens in Tuscany comes up about 323 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Sasso Fratino.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Sasso Fratino write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 390 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Sasso Fratino. Next is back through Teatro Angelo Mariani.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Teatro Angelo Mariani write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Teatro Angelo Mariani, late in the day. Next is Gessi di Onferno.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Gessi di Onferno write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 510 km.
Gessi di Onferno → Teatro Angelo Mariani is 52 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Teatro Angelo Mariani → Sasso Fratino is 69 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Sasso Fratino → Medici Villas and Gardens in Tuscany is 66 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Medici Villas and Gardens in Tuscany → Historic Centre of San Gimignano is 66 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Historic Centre of San Gimignano → back through Medici Villas and Gardens in Tuscany is 70 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Medici Villas and Gardens in Tuscany → back through Sasso Fratino is 67 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Sasso Fratino → back through Teatro Angelo Mariani is 69 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Teatro Angelo Mariani → Gessi di Onferno is 52 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.