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.
A 324 km round trip from Florence - roughly 5 h 38 in the saddle. The stops in between: Villa La Magia, Historic Centre of San Gimignano, Historic Centre of Siena and back through Historic Centre of San Gimignano. 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 32 km this is Chiantigiana Wine Road, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
Cosimo de' Medici chose a quiet slope just north of Florence for his country house, and in the late 1450s he had the architect Michelozzo rebuild an older castle-like farmhouse at Careggi into a villa. It was not a grand showpiece. It was a working retreat where a banker who ran a city without holding office could think, farm, and entertain scholars. Cosimo died here in 1464, and so did his grandson Lorenzo the Magnificent in 1492, which makes the walls rather weighty with Florentine history.
Read the complete Villa de Careggi write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Villa de Careggi is where the day begins. Next is Villa La Magia.
The Medici loved the countryside, especially when it came with hunting grounds, and Villa La Magia at Quarrata was one of their country retreats at the foot of the Montalbano hills, a few kilometres south of Pistoia. Francesco I de' Medici bought it in the sixteenth century to use as a hunting lodge, and it belongs to the World Heritage inscription for the Medici villas and gardens of Tuscany. The villa is a solid rectangular building around a courtyard, more farmhouse than palace, with a park that has become home to contemporary art installations, a rather unexpected touch for a Renaissance hunting lodge.
Read the complete Villa La Magia write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Villa La Magia comes up about 32 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 113 km into the recorded legs you reach Historic Centre of San Gimignano. 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, about halfway. 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.
back through Historic Centre of San Gimignano sits at 170 km, about halfway. Next is back through Villa La Magia.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Villa La Magia write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Villa La Magia comes up about 291 km into the recorded legs. Next is Villa de Careggi.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Villa de Careggi write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Villa de Careggi closes the day.
Villa de Careggi → Villa La Magia is 32 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Villa La Magia → Historic Centre of San Gimignano is 81 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Historic Centre of San Gimignano → Historic Centre of Siena is 48 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Historic Centre of Siena → back through Historic Centre of San Gimignano is 44 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Historic Centre of San Gimignano → back through Villa La Magia is 86 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Villa La Magia → Villa de Careggi is 33 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.