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 333 km round trip from San Lorenzo de El Escorial - roughly 4 h 24 in the saddle. The stops in between: Royal Monastery of Santo Tomás, Iglesia de San Cristobal and back through Royal Monastery of Santo Tomás. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,350 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
This part of the ride is 62 km of Palace → Royal Monastery of Santo Tomás.
Philip II wanted a monastery, a palace, a royal tomb and a college all in one building, and in the 1560s he got it, in the shadow of the Sierra de Guadarrama. The Royal Site of San Lorenzo de El Escorial took about twenty years to build, under the architects Juan de Herrera and Juan Bautista de Toledo, and it is made of pale grey granite, severe and symmetrical, with slate spires and almost no decoration outside. The king had vowed to build a monastery to St Lawrence after a victory over the French at St Quentin in 1557, and the plan of the building is said to echo the gridiron on which the saint was martyred.
Read the complete Palace write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Palace is where the day begins. Next is Royal Monastery of Santo Tomás.
Ávila is the highest provincial capital in Spain, at more than eleven hundred metres, and the cold, clear air gives the whole city a sharp, medieval edge. Its granite walls, about two and a half kilometres around and punctuated by dozens of towers, are among the best preserved in Europe. Just outside them, the Royal Monastery of Santo Tomás is a different sort of monument: a Dominican house founded in the 1480s by the Catholic Monarchs, Ferdinand and Isabella, who used it as a summer retreat. It is also the burial place of Tomás de Torquemada, the notorious first Inquisitor General, and of Prince Juan, the monarchs' only son, who died young, and whose marble tomb is one of the finest Renaissance sculptures in Spain.
Read the complete Royal Monastery of Santo Tomás write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Royal Monastery of Santo Tomás comes up 91 km in. Next is Iglesia de San Cristobal.
Look up in Salamanca and you will see storks. Their huge nests, bundles of sticks the size of armchairs, sit on church towers, convent roofs and any chimney that will hold them, and from late winter the whole old town is full of the sound of bill-clattering. The area around the church of San Cristóbal, on the edge of the old centre, is a good place to notice them, with the stone of the church and its neighbours set against a big Castilian sky. It is a modest church in a city of grand ones, but the quiet streets around it give a taste of daily life away from the tourist route.
Read the complete Iglesia de San Cristobal write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
182 km in you reach Iglesia de San Cristobal. Next is back through Royal Monastery of Santo Tomás.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Royal Monastery of Santo Tomás write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Royal Monastery of Santo Tomás, late in the day. Next is Palace.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Palace write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Palace. That is the ride.
Palace → Royal Monastery of Santo Tomás is 62 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Royal Monastery of Santo Tomás → Iglesia de San Cristobal is 120 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Iglesia de San Cristobal → back through Royal Monastery of Santo Tomás is 120 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Royal Monastery of Santo Tomás → Palace is 62 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.