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 Florence it runs 411 km to Florence; allow about 6 h 54 of riding. On the way it passes Historic Centre of Siena, Piazza del Duomo and back through Historic Centre of Siena. 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 80 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 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 80 km into the recorded legs. 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.
about 205 km into the recorded legs you reach Piazza del Duomo. 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 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.
Back at Villa de Careggi. That is the ride.
Villa de Careggi → Historic Centre of Siena is 80 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Historic Centre of Siena → Piazza del Duomo is 125 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Piazza del Duomo → back through Historic Centre of Siena is 128 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Historic Centre of Siena → Villa de Careggi is 78 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.