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 275 km round trip from Segovia - roughly 4 h 20 in the saddle. On the way it passes Monastery and Site of the Escurial, Paseo del Prado and Buen Retiro, University and Historic Precinct of Alcalá 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. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Speed drops and stays down. Park rather than crawl through. 54 km through ground somebody thought worth listing. The road passes it rather than bypassing it.
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.
Old Town of Segovia and its Aqueduct is where the day begins. Next is Monastery and Site of the Escurial.
Philip II began the monastery of San Lorenzo de El Escorial in 1563 and it was finished in 1584, a short time for a building of its size. It sits on the southern slope of the Sierra de Guadarrama, about fifty kilometres north-west of Madrid, and the two towns beside it, San Lorenzo de El Escorial and El Escorial, are small, tidy and slightly prosperous, living partly off the building that gave them their name.
Read the complete Monastery and Site of the Escurial write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Monastery and Site of the Escurial comes up 50 km in. 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.
100 km in you reach Paseo del Prado and Buen Retiro. Next is University and Historic Precinct of Alcalá.
Alcalá de Henares has a talent for producing writers. Miguel de Cervantes was born here in 1547, and a house museum in the old town commemorates him. The university, founded by Cardinal Cisneros in 1499, was one of the earliest planned university towns in Europe and a model for institutions in the Americas, and its Renaissance and Baroque buildings, with their stone façades and courtyards, are the core of the UNESCO listing that Alcalá received in 1998 for its university and historic precinct. The Paraninfo, the ceremonial hall, is where the Cervantes Prize is presented each year.
Read the complete University and Historic Precinct of Alcalá write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
University and Historic Precinct of Alcalá, about halfway. 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 sits at 201 km, about halfway. Next is back through Monastery and Site of the Escurial.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Monastery and Site of the Escurial write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Monastery and Site of the Escurial comes up 251 km in. Next is Old Town of Segovia and its Aqueduct.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
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.
Old Town of Segovia and its Aqueduct closes the day.
Old Town of Segovia and its Aqueduct → Monastery and Site of the Escurial is 54 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Monastery and Site of the Escurial → Paseo del Prado and Buen Retiro is 59 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Paseo del Prado and Buen Retiro → University and Historic Precinct of Alcalá is 38 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
University and Historic Precinct of Alcalá → back through Paseo del Prado and Buen Retiro is 38 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Paseo del Prado and Buen Retiro → back through Monastery and Site of the Escurial is 59 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Monastery and Site of the Escurial → Old Town of Segovia and its Aqueduct is 54 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.