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 Algés it runs 186 km to Algés; allow about 3 h 22 of riding. It goes by way of Cultural Landscape of Sintra, Royal Building of Mafra - Palace, back through Royal Building of Mafra - Palace and back through Cultural Landscape of Sintra.
For about 29 km this is Atlantic Coast N247, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it — expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast.
Water arrives beside the road and stays for 25 km. The line follows the shore because there is nowhere else for it to go. Slow enough to look. The surface follows the shoreline, so the corners arrive where the water decided, not where an engineer did.
The Hieronymites were a monastic order that followed Saint Jerome, and King Manuel I gave them a very grand home. He ordered the monastery built on the riverbank at Belém in 1501, on the site of a small chapel founded by Henry the Navigator, to serve as a royal pantheon and a place where monks would pray for sailors and for the king's soul, and it took most of a century to complete. The architects João de Castilho and Diogo de Boitaca worked in the Manueline style, and the south portal, a mass of carved saints and canopies, and the cloister, with its twisting columns and nautical motifs, are among the finest pieces of late Gothic in Europe.
Read the complete Monastery of the Hieronymites write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Monastery of the Hieronymites is where the day begins. Next is Cultural Landscape of Sintra.
Lord Byron called Sintra a glorious Eden, and two centuries of romantics, kings and eccentric millionaires have tried hard to prove him right. The granite range rises abruptly west of Lisbon, catching Atlantic moisture so that its slopes are draped in mist and dense, damp forest of oak, cork, fern and exotic trees planted by nineteenth-century gardeners. On the peaks and in the woods stand the Moorish Castle, its walls snaking along the ridge; the Pena Palace, a riot of yellow and red towers built for King Ferdinand II in the mid-1800s; the Quinta da Regaleira, with its spiralling initiation well; and the exotic Monserrate palace. UNESCO inscribed the whole cultural landscape in 1995.
Read the complete Cultural Landscape of Sintra write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Cultural Landscape of Sintra comes up about 29 km into the recorded legs. Next is Royal Building of Mafra - Palace.
King João V of Portugal had a great deal of Brazilian gold and a vow to keep, and the result is the Royal Building of Mafra, a palace, basilica and monastery so large that it seems to belong to a different scale of town altogether. Construction began in 1717, reportedly in thanks for the birth of an heir, and the project absorbed enormous resources and tens of thousands of workers. The facade stretches for some two hundred and twenty metres, with the basilica in the centre and the royal apartments in the wings, the king's at one end and the queen's at the other, a long walk apart.
Read the complete Royal Building of Mafra - Palace write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 59 km into the recorded legs you reach Royal Building of Mafra - Palace. Next is Cultural Landscape of Sintra.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Cultural Landscape of Sintra write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Cultural Landscape of Sintra, about halfway. Next is back through Royal Building of Mafra - Palace.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Royal Building of Mafra - Palace write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Royal Building of Mafra - Palace sits at 105 km, about halfway. Next is back through Cultural Landscape of Sintra.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Cultural Landscape of Sintra write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Cultural Landscape of Sintra comes up about 149 km into the recorded legs. Next is Monastery of the Hieronymites.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Monastery of the Hieronymites write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Monastery of the Hieronymites closes the day.
Monastery of the Hieronymites → Cultural Landscape of Sintra is 29 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Cultural Landscape of Sintra → Royal Building of Mafra - Palace is 30 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Royal Building of Mafra - Palace → Cultural Landscape of Sintra is 31 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Cultural Landscape of Sintra → back through Royal Building of Mafra - Palace is 30 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Royal Building of Mafra - Palace → back through Cultural Landscape of Sintra is 29 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Cultural Landscape of Sintra → Monastery of the Hieronymites is 37 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.