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.
From San Lorenzo de El Escorial it runs 330 km to San Lorenzo de El Escorial; allow about 4 h 21 of riding. On the way it passes 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. The line favours views over speed.
Most people who come to San Lorenzo de El Escorial only see the monastery, that vast granite grid Philip II raised in the second half of the sixteenth century as palace, basilica, library and royal tomb all at once. A short walk below it, through terraced gardens and woodland, sits something far more human in scale. The Casita del Infante, also called the Casita de Arriba, was designed by Juan de Villanueva in the late eighteenth century for the Infante Gabriel, a son of Carlos III, as a place to retreat, play music and escape the endless etiquette of court. Its sibling, the Casita del Príncipe, lies down the hill near the town of El Escorial and was built for the future Carlos IV.
Read the complete Subsidiary building \La Casita del Infante write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Subsidiary building \La Casita del Infante 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.
181 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 Subsidiary building \La Casita del Infante.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Subsidiary building \La Casita del Infante write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Subsidiary building \La Casita del Infante. That is the ride.
Subsidiary building \La Casita del Infante → Royal Monastery of Santo Tomás is 61 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 → Subsidiary building \La Casita del Infante is 61 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.