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.
296 km from Bologna to Bologna, about 5 h 30 of riding. The stops in between: Vena del Gesso Romagnola - M.te Penzola, Villa de Cafaggiolo, Historic Centre of Florence and back through Villa de Cafaggiolo. The line favours views over speed.
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For about 28 km this is Chiantigiana Wine Road, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
Strada Maggiore is one of the oldest streets in Bologna, running east from the Two Towers along the line of the Roman road toward the Via Emilia, and it is a street where the arcades seem to be a different style every hundred metres. Some are medieval and made of timber, with beams that look too old to hold anything up, others are Renaissance and graceful, with slender columns. Along the way the street passes tall palaces, small shops, old churches and, on the right, the lovely porch of Santa Maria dei Servi, a Gothic church whose portico is among the most beautiful in the city.
Read the complete Strada Maggiore write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Strada Maggiore is where the day begins. Next is Vena del Gesso Romagnola - M.te Penzola, 42 km on.
The Santerno valley climbs south from Imola into the Apennines toward Tuscany, and about fifteen kilometres up, the river cuts through a ridge of shining grey-white rock. This is the western end of the Vena del Gesso Romagnola, the gypsum vein that runs across this part of Romagna, and Monte Penzola rises above the village of Borgo Tossignano, with Fontanelice and Casalfiumanese nearby.
Read the complete Vena del Gesso Romagnola - M.te Penzola write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Vena del Gesso Romagnola - M.te Penzola comes up about 56 km into the recorded legs. Next is Villa de Cafaggiolo.
In the green bowl of the Mugello, north of Florence, the Medici family kept a house long before they ruled the city. Cafaggiolo was an old family property, and around the middle of the fifteenth century Cosimo the Elder had the architect Michelozzo transform it into a fortified country villa, with battlements, a tower and a moat, a cross between a castle and a farmhouse. Lorenzo the Magnificent spent time here as a boy, and the villa became a favourite retreat for hunting and escaping the plague in the city. It is one of the Medici Villas and Gardens in Tuscany listed by UNESCO, and visits depend on current restoration and opening arrangements, so check before you arrive.
Read the complete Villa de Cafaggiolo write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 120 km into the recorded legs you reach Villa de Cafaggiolo. Next is Historic Centre of Florence.
Florence is the kind of city where the problem is not finding something to look at but deciding when to stop. The historic centre sits on a bend of the Arno, a compact grid of Roman origin with the Duomo at its middle, Brunelleschi's dome rising over the roofs, the Palazzo Vecchio at the civic heart and the Ponte Vecchio, the only bridge the retreating Germans spared in 1944. The Medici bankers who ran the place for much of the fifteenth to eighteenth centuries paid for most of what you are about to see, and they were rather good at it.
Read the complete Historic Centre of Florence write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Historic Centre of Florence, about halfway. Next is back through Villa de Cafaggiolo.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Villa de Cafaggiolo write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Villa de Cafaggiolo sits at 166 km, about halfway. Next is back through Vena del Gesso Romagnola - M.te Penzola, 42 km on.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Vena del Gesso Romagnola - M.te Penzola write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Vena del Gesso Romagnola - M.te Penzola comes up about 239 km into the recorded legs. Next is Strada Maggiore.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Strada Maggiore write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Strada Maggiore closes the day.
Strada Maggiore → Vena del Gesso Romagnola - M.te Penzola is 56 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Vena del Gesso Romagnola - M.te Penzola → Villa de Cafaggiolo is 64 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Villa de Cafaggiolo → Historic Centre of Florence is 28 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Historic Centre of Florence → back through Villa de Cafaggiolo is 28 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Villa de Cafaggiolo → back through Vena del Gesso Romagnola - M.te Penzola is 63 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Vena del Gesso Romagnola - M.te Penzola → Strada Maggiore is 57 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.