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.
358 km from Pienza to Pienza, about 6 h 20 of riding. It goes by way of Historic Centre of San Gimignano, Medici Villas and Gardens in Tuscany and back through Historic Centre of San Gimignano. A steady touring day rather than a sprint.
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For about 69 km this is Chiantigiana Wine Road, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
Pienza is what happens when a pope decides to rebuild the village he was born in. In the fifteenth century the hamlet was called Corsignano, and one of its sons, the humanist Enea Silvio Piccolomini, became Pope Pius II. He commissioned the architect Bernardo Rossellino to turn it into an ideal Renaissance town, and within a few years a cathedral, a papal palace, a bishop's palace and a town hall stood around a single carefully composed square. The village got a new name, after the pope, and became one of the first places where Renaissance ideas of town planning were put into actual stone.
Read the complete Historic Centre of the City of Pienza write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Historic Centre of the City of Pienza is where the day begins. 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 comes up about 110 km into the recorded legs. 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.
about 179 km into the recorded legs you reach Medici Villas and Gardens in Tuscany. Next is back through Historic Centre of San Gimignano.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Historic Centre of San Gimignano write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Historic Centre of San Gimignano, late in the day. Next is Historic Centre of the City of Pienza.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Historic Centre of the City of Pienza write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Historic Centre of the City of Pienza. That is the ride.
Historic Centre of the City of Pienza → Historic Centre of San Gimignano is 110 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Historic Centre of San Gimignano → Medici Villas and Gardens in Tuscany is 69 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Medici Villas and Gardens in Tuscany → back through Historic Centre of San Gimignano is 66 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Historic Centre of San Gimignano → Historic Centre of the City of Pienza is 112 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.