Why this ride
From Toledo it runs 202 km to Toledo; allow about 3 h 09 of riding. It goes by way of Aranjuez Cultural Landscape, Paseo del Prado and Buen Retiro and back through Aranjuez Cultural Landscape. The line favours views over speed.
CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
Historic City of Toledo and Paseo del Prado and Buen Retiro
Plan this ride
- Recorded distance
- 202 km
- Riding-time estimate
- 3 h 09
- Journey
- Recorded itinerary
Distance and timing basis
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.
Waypoint introductions and full write-ups
1. Historic City of Toledo
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.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Historic City of Toledo is where the day begins. Next is Aranjuez Cultural Landscape.
2. Aranjuez Cultural Landscape
Aranjuez is the green oasis of the dry Madrid plain, a royal town built where the Tagus and the Jarama rivers meet and where Spanish kings came every spring to escape the court. The palace, largely an eighteenth-century Bourbon creation, faces broad avenues and formal gardens, and the riverside parks of the Jardín de la Isla and the Jardín del Príncipe stretch for kilometres along the water, with fountains, statues, an artificial island and tall old trees. In 2001 UNESCO listed the whole thing as a cultural landscape, recognising how the kings shaped nature, agriculture and town planning into a single designed whole.
Read the complete Aranjuez Cultural Landscape write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Aranjuez Cultural Landscape comes up about 50 km into the recorded legs. Next is Paseo del Prado and Buen Retiro.
3. 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.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
about 103 km into the recorded legs you reach Paseo del Prado and Buen Retiro. Next is back through Aranjuez Cultural Landscape.
4. back through Aranjuez Cultural Landscape
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Aranjuez Cultural Landscape write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
back through Aranjuez Cultural Landscape, late in the day. Next is Historic City of Toledo.
5. Historic City of Toledo
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Historic City of Toledo write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Back at Historic City of Toledo. That is the ride.
Leg by leg
Historic City of Toledo to Aranjuez Cultural Landscape
Historic City of Toledo → Aranjuez Cultural Landscape is 50 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Aranjuez Cultural Landscape to Paseo del Prado and Buen Retiro
Aranjuez Cultural Landscape → Paseo del Prado and Buen Retiro is 53 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Paseo del Prado and Buen Retiro to back through Aranjuez Cultural Landscape
Paseo del Prado and Buen Retiro → back through Aranjuez Cultural Landscape is 49 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Aranjuez Cultural Landscape to Historic City of Toledo
back through Aranjuez Cultural Landscape → Historic City of Toledo is 51 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.