Teatro Bramante and Evaporiti di San Leo

Waypoint introductions and full write-ups

1. 1. Teatro Bramante

   Urbania has had three names. It began as Castel delle Ripe, became Casteldurante in the thirteenth century, and was renamed in 1636 when Pope Urban VIII took over the duchy and gave it his own. In the Renaissance it was a pottery town, famous for majolica, the tin-glazed painted earthenware that Duke Guidobaldo and his court sent as gifts around Europe, and the ceramics still sold in the shops carry on that tradition. The theatre that bears the name of Bramante, the great architect who was born in nearby Fermignano, stands in the town centre, a small, intimate house with tiers of boxes in the Italian manner, and the town itself is a small walled place on a bend of the Metauro river, with brick arcades and a handsome ducal palace.

   Read the complete Teatro Bramante write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Teatro Bramante is where the day begins. Next is Gessi di Onferno.

2. 2. Gessi di Onferno

   The hills behind Rimini hide a surprising piece of geology. Around the hamlet of Onferno, in the comune of Gemmano, the ground is made of gypsum, laid down when the Mediterranean dried out millions of years ago and then pushed up into these ridges. Water dissolves gypsum easily, so the landscape is pocked with sinkholes, blind valleys and caves, and the Grotta di Onferno winds for hundreds of metres beneath the village. The name is often linked to inferno, supposedly because vapour rising from the cave mouth in cold weather looked like the breath of hell.

   Read the complete Gessi di Onferno write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Gessi di Onferno comes up about 44 km into the recorded legs. Next is Evaporiti di San Leo.

3. 3. Evaporiti di San Leo

   San Leo stands on a limestone block that rises sheer out of the Marecchia valley, and from a distance it looks like a fortress that nobody could possibly have captured. The ground under it tells a longer and stranger story. The evaporite rocks in this area, gypsum and associated salts, were laid down around six million years ago, when the Mediterranean nearly dried out in what geologists call the Messinian salinity crisis. Seawater evaporated, minerals crystallised, and the beds you see in the cuttings are the leftovers of that event.

   Read the complete Evaporiti di San Leo write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   about 82 km into the recorded legs you reach Evaporiti di San Leo. Next is back through Gessi di Onferno.

4. 4. back through Gessi di Onferno

   Return visit. Read the place description above.

   Read the complete Gessi di Onferno write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   back through Gessi di Onferno, late in the day. Next is Teatro Bramante.

5. 5. Teatro Bramante

   Return visit. Read the place description above.

   Read the complete Teatro Bramante write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Back at Teatro Bramante. That is the ride.