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.
A 336 km round trip from Toledo - roughly 4 h 31 in the saddle. It goes by way of Paseo del Prado and Buen Retiro, Old Town of Segovia and its Aqueduct and back through Paseo del Prado and Buen Retiro. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,300 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. The line favours views over speed.
Toledo sits inside a tight loop of the Tagus, with a gorge on three sides and a fortified hill in the middle, and its position is the reason for much of its history. It was the capital of the Visigothic kingdom, a Muslim city for centuries, and then the seat of the Spanish crown until Philip II moved the court to Madrid in 1561. Christians, Muslims and Jews lived side by side here in the Middle Ages, and the old centre still holds a synagogue, a small mosque and a great Gothic cathedral within a few minutes' walk of each other. UNESCO listed the whole city in 1986. The painter El Greco made it his home, and his huge picture of the burial of the Count of Orgaz hangs in a small church near the old Jewish quarter.
Read the complete Historic City of Toledo write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Historic City of Toledo is where the day begins. Next is Paseo del Prado and Buen Retiro.
Riding into the centre of Madrid is not anyone's idea of a scenic route, but the Paseo del Prado makes up for the traffic. This broad, tree-lined boulevard, laid out in the eighteenth century under Charles III as a showpiece of the Enlightenment, runs from the Cibeles fountain past Neptune to the Atocha station, and along it stand three of the greatest art museums in the world: the Prado, the Thyssen-Bornemisza and, a short walk away, the Reina Sofía with Picasso's Guernica. Behind the Prado, the Buen Retiro park spreads over more than a hundred hectares of gardens, lakes and avenues, once the grounds of a royal palace. In 2021 UNESCO listed the ensemble as the Landscape of Light, a recognition of the boulevard and the park as a planned urban landscape devoted to science, art and leisure.
Read the complete Paseo del Prado and Buen Retiro write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Paseo del Prado and Buen Retiro comes up about 73 km into the recorded legs. Next is Old Town of Segovia and its Aqueduct.
The Roman aqueduct of Segovia strides through the middle of the city on two tiers of granite arches, nearly thirty metres high at its tallest point, built without a drop of mortar, the stones held together by their own weight. It was probably built around the end of the first century or early second century AD, and it carried water to the city until well into modern times. Standing beneath it in the Plaza del Azoguejo, with traffic and people flowing around the base, you can only marvel at the skill of the engineers who built it almost two thousand years ago. The old town and the aqueduct were listed by UNESCO in 1985.
Read the complete Old Town of Segovia and its Aqueduct write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 169 km into the recorded legs you reach Old Town of Segovia and its Aqueduct. Next is back through Paseo del Prado and Buen Retiro.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Paseo del Prado and Buen Retiro write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Paseo del Prado and Buen Retiro, late in the day. Next is Historic City of Toledo.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Historic City of Toledo write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Historic City of Toledo. That is the ride.
Historic City of Toledo → Paseo del Prado and Buen Retiro is 73 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Paseo del Prado and Buen Retiro → Old Town of Segovia and its Aqueduct is 96 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Old Town of Segovia and its Aqueduct → back through Paseo del Prado and Buen Retiro is 93 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Paseo del Prado and Buen Retiro → Historic City of Toledo is 74 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.