CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
The recorded total and the leg detail need reconciliation. Inspect the leg notes before using this record for timing or navigation. 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 260 km round trip from Montecatini-Terme - roughly 5 h 14 in the saddle. On the way it passes Villa de Poggio a Caiano, Villa Medici de Fiesole, Sasso Fratino and back through Villa Medici de Fiesole. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 800 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For 25 km this is Chiantigiana Wine Road, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
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 Villa de Poggio a Caiano.
Of all the Medici villas, Poggio a Caiano is the one that changed architecture. Lorenzo the Magnificent commissioned it from Giuliano da Sangallo in the 1480s, and the result was something new: a country house raised on an arcaded platform, with a portico topped by a classical pediment, the first time a temple front had been put on a private villa since antiquity. Palladio would develop the idea in the Veneto decades later. Inside, the great hall is decorated with frescoes by Andrea del Sarto, Pontormo and others, and Pontormo's lunette of Vertumnus and Pomona, with its lazy figures lounging on a wall, is one of the most charming paintings of the Renaissance. The villa is part of the UNESCO listing of the Medici Villas and Gardens in Tuscany.
Read the complete Villa de Poggio a Caiano write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Villa de Poggio a Caiano comes up 38 km in. Next is Villa Medici de Fiesole.
Fiesole sits on a hill above Florence, and it has looked down on the city for much longer than Florence has existed. The Etruscans founded a settlement here, and the Romans built a theatre, baths and a temple that are still visible. When the Medici came to power in the fifteenth century they chose the slope below Fiesole for a country villa, and Giovanni de' Medici, the younger son of Cosimo, commissioned Michelozzo to design one around 1450. The result, Villa Medici, is built on terraces cut into the hillside, with a loggia that opens out over a sweeping view of the Arno valley and the dome of Florence cathedral.
Read the complete Villa Medici de Fiesole write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
76 km in you reach Villa Medici de Fiesole. Next is Sasso Fratino.
Sasso Fratino is a forest you are not allowed to enter, and that is precisely the point. High on the Romagna side of the Apennine ridge, in the national park of the Casentino forests, it was declared Italy's first integral nature reserve in 1959, and since then nature has been left almost entirely to itself. Ancient beech woods cling to steep slopes, with silver fir, maple and ash mixed in, and dead trees are left to rot where they fall, feeding fungi, beetles and birds. In 2017 it became part of the transnational World Heritage listing of ancient beech forests of Europe.
Read the complete Sasso Fratino write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Sasso Fratino, about halfway. Next is back through Villa Medici de Fiesole.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Villa Medici de Fiesole write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Villa Medici de Fiesole sits at 152 km, about halfway. Next is back through Villa de Poggio a Caiano.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Villa de Poggio a Caiano write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Villa de Poggio a Caiano comes up 190 km in. 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.
Montecatini Terme closes the day.
Montecatini Terme → Villa de Poggio a Caiano is 32 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Villa de Poggio a Caiano → Villa Medici de Fiesole is 25 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Villa Medici de Fiesole → Sasso Fratino is 57 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Sasso Fratino → back through Villa Medici de Fiesole is 57 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Villa Medici de Fiesole → back through Villa de Poggio a Caiano is 25 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Villa de Poggio a Caiano → Montecatini Terme is 32 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.