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.
From Poggio A Caiano it runs 393 km to Poggio A Caiano; allow about 7 h 10 of riding. It goes by way of Piazza del Duomo, Evaporitic Karst and Caves of Northern Ape and back through Piazza del Duomo. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 900 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
The Medici liked to hunt, and Ferdinando I wanted somewhere to do it. In the late sixteenth century the grand duke commissioned the architect Bernardo Buontalenti to build him a hunting lodge on the hill of Artimino, west of Florence, and the result was a large, plain and strangely beautiful villa with a loggia, a terrace and a forest of chimneys. It is nicknamed the villa of the hundred chimneys, though there are fewer than that, and the stacks along the roofline give the building a rhythm that you can recognise from a long way off. It is one of the Medici villas and gardens that UNESCO listed in 2013 for the way they shaped the Italian idea of a country house.
Read the complete Villa de Artimino write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Villa de Artimino is where the day begins. 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 comes up about 69 km into the recorded legs. Next is Evaporitic Karst and Caves of Northern Ape.
Gypsum dissolves in water far faster than limestone, and in the upper valley of the Secchia, in the Reggio Emilia Apennines, that simple fact has produced a strange landscape of white cliffs, sinkholes, caves and underground rivers. The Evaporitic Karst and Caves of the Northern Apennines were added to the World Heritage list in 2023, and this area near Castelnovo ne' Monti and Villa Minozzo holds some of the most striking outcrops, ancient Triassic gypsum that glitters in the sun and forms steep walls above the river. Near the Secchia, the springs of Poiano gush out of the rock with a strong flow of slightly salty water, fed by the karst system.
Read the complete Evaporitic Karst and Caves of Northern Ape write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 195 km into the recorded legs you reach Evaporitic Karst and Caves of Northern Ape. Next is back through Piazza del Duomo.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Piazza del Duomo write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Piazza del Duomo, late in the day. Next is Villa de Artimino.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Villa de Artimino write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Villa de Artimino. That is the ride.
Villa de Artimino → Piazza del Duomo is 69 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Piazza del Duomo → Evaporitic Karst and Caves of Northern Ape is 126 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Evaporitic Karst and Caves of Northern Ape → back through Piazza del Duomo is 129 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Piazza del Duomo → Villa de Artimino is 69 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.