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.
382 km from Torrenieri to Torrenieri, about 7 h 24 of riding. The stops in between: Historic Centre of Siena, Historic Centre of San Gimignano, Villa de Cerreto Guidi and Piazza del Duomo. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For about 39 km this is Val d Orcia Scenic Road, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
Every photograph you have ever seen of Tuscany with a farmhouse on a bare hill, a winding line of cypresses and a soft haze over rolling fields was probably taken somewhere close to here. The Val d'Orcia is the valley of the river Orcia, south of Siena, a farmed landscape that Renaissance landowners deliberately shaped to look like the paintings of their time. UNESCO listed it in 2004 as a landscape designed with an idea in mind, and on a clear morning that idea is very easy to grasp.
Read the complete Val d'Orcia write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Val d'Orcia is where the day begins. Next is Historic Centre of Siena.
Siena sits on three ridges in the heart of Tuscany, a red-brick medieval city that has hardly changed its shape in seven hundred years. At its centre is the Piazza del Campo, a sloping, shell-shaped square paved in brick and divided into nine sections, a reminder of the Council of Nine that governed the city in its golden age. The Palazzo Pubblico, with the slender Torre del Mangia, stands at the bottom of the square, and inside are frescoes by Ambrogio Lorenzetti showing the effects of good and bad government, painted in the fourteenth century.
Read the complete Historic Centre of Siena write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Historic Centre of Siena comes up about 39 km into the recorded legs. Next is Historic Centre of San Gimignano.
Seen from the surrounding countryside, San Gimignano looks like a medieval Manhattan: a cluster of stone towers rising from a hilltop above vineyards and olive groves in the Val d'Elsa. In its heyday, in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the town had dozens of them, built by rival families as symbols of power and wealth. Fourteen survive, enough to make it one of the most recognisable towns in Italy and a UNESCO World Heritage site since 1990.
Read the complete Historic Centre of San Gimignano write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 83 km into the recorded legs you reach Historic Centre of San Gimignano. Next is Villa de Cerreto Guidi.
Cosimo I de' Medici liked to hunt, and in the 1560s he had a villa built on a hilltop at Cerreto Guidi, on the edge of the marshes and woods west of Florence, where the game was plentiful. From the outside it is austere, a solid block of stone facing a square, but the approach is spectacular: a pair of great brick ramps, known as the Medici bridges, zigzag up to the entrance. The villa is part of the UNESCO listing of the Medici Villas and Gardens in Tuscany, and it holds a dark legend. Cosimo's daughter Isabella died here in 1576, and the story goes that she was murdered by her husband, Paolo Giordano Orsini, for her alleged infidelity. Whether it is true or not, it is told to every visitor.
Read the complete Villa de Cerreto Guidi write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Villa de Cerreto Guidi, about halfway. Next is Piazza del Duomo.
Nothing prepares you for that first glimpse through the gateway. A wide green lawn, and set on it like ornaments on a cloth, the white marble cathedral, the round baptistery, the cemetery cloister of the Camposanto, and of course the bell tower, leaning at an angle that looks wrong no matter how many photographs you have seen. The Piazza del Duomo in Pisa, also called the Field of Miracles, was one of the first places in Italy to be listed by UNESCO, back in 1987.
Read the complete Piazza del Duomo write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Piazza del Duomo sits at 183 km, about halfway. Next is back through Villa de Cerreto Guidi.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Villa de Cerreto Guidi write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Villa de Cerreto Guidi comes up about 250 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Historic Centre of San Gimignano.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Historic Centre of San Gimignano write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 300 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Historic Centre of San Gimignano. Next is back through Historic Centre of Siena.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Historic Centre of Siena write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Historic Centre of Siena, late in the day. Next is Val d'Orcia.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Val d'Orcia write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 382 km.
Val d'Orcia → Historic Centre of Siena is 39 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Historic Centre of Siena → Historic Centre of San Gimignano is 44 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Historic Centre of San Gimignano → Villa de Cerreto Guidi is 50 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Villa de Cerreto Guidi → Piazza del Duomo is 58 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Piazza del Duomo → back through Villa de Cerreto Guidi is 59 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Villa de Cerreto Guidi → back through Historic Centre of San Gimignano is 50 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Historic Centre of San Gimignano → back through Historic Centre of Siena is 45 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Historic Centre of Siena → Val d'Orcia is 38 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.