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 Montecatini-Terme it runs 534 km to Montecatini-Terme; allow about 7 h 01 of riding. It goes by way of Palais de Seravezza, Bassa collina reggiana and back through Palais de Seravezza. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
The water at Montecatini has been drunk for health since the Middle Ages, but it was in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries that the town became one of the great spa resorts of Europe, with grand thermal establishments built in neoclassical, Liberty and Art Deco styles, set in parks of plane trees and pines. The Tettuccio, with its marble colonnades and frescoes, is the most famous, a temple of water where visitors drink from taps along a counter. In 2021 Montecatini became part of the Great Spa Towns of Europe World Heritage Site, alongside Baden-Baden, Bath, Vichy and others.
Read the complete Montecatini Terme write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Montecatini Terme is where the day begins. Next is Palais de Seravezza.
Seravezza is where the Apuan Alps meet the Versilia coast in northern Tuscany. Behind the beaches of Forte dei Marmi, the mountains rise abruptly, white with marble scars, and Seravezza sits at the mouth of a valley where two rivers join. The Palazzo Mediceo, built in the 1560s for Cosimo I de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany, was a summer residence and a base for overseeing the region's marble quarries and silver mines. It is one of the Medici villas and gardens inscribed on the UNESCO list in 2013, and today it hosts museums and exhibitions.
Read the complete Palais de Seravezza write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Palais de Seravezza comes up about 69 km into the recorded legs. Next is Bassa collina reggiana.
The low hills south of Reggio Emilia, where the Po plain starts to ripple up toward the Apennines, hide a strange geology: outcrops of gypsum, the glittering crystalline rock left behind when ancient seas evaporated millions of years ago. Water dissolves gypsum easily, and over time it has carved caves, sinkholes and blind valleys into these hills. The Bassa Collina Reggiana, the low Reggio hill country, is part of the UNESCO site Evaporitic Karst and Caves of Northern Apennines, listed in 2023, and around Borzano, Albinea and Vezzano sul Crostolo you can see the white and grey gypsum cliffs poking through the woods and vineyards.
Read the complete Bassa collina reggiana write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 266 km into the recorded legs you reach Bassa collina reggiana. Next is back through Palais de Seravezza.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Palais de Seravezza write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Palais de Seravezza, late in the day. Next is Montecatini Terme.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Montecatini Terme write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Montecatini Terme. That is the ride.
Montecatini Terme → Palais de Seravezza is 69 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Palais de Seravezza → Bassa collina reggiana is 197 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Bassa collina reggiana → back through Palais de Seravezza is 197 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Palais de Seravezza → Montecatini Terme is 70 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.