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 Barberino di Mugello it runs 291 km to Barberino di Mugello; allow about 5 h 17 of riding. The stops in between: Historic Centre of Florence, Villa La Magia, Historic Centre of San Gimignano and back through Villa La Magia. The line favours views over speed.
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For about 26 km this is Chiantigiana Wine Road, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
The Medici came from the Mugello, and Il Trebbio is one of the places where you can see it. The family's rise to Florentine power in the fifteenth century began in these hills north of the city, among farms and woods where they held land long before they held banks and palaces. Il Trebbio is a fortified villa near San Piero a Sieve, redesigned for Cosimo the Elder by the architect Michelozzo, and its crenellated walls, tower and gardens mark it as a country retreat that is also, quietly, a statement of status. It is one of the Medici villas listed by UNESCO in 2013.
Read the complete Villa de Il Trebbio write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Villa de Il Trebbio is where the day begins. Next is Historic Centre of Florence.
Florence is the kind of city where the problem is not finding something to look at but deciding when to stop. The historic centre sits on a bend of the Arno, a compact grid of Roman origin with the Duomo at its middle, Brunelleschi's dome rising over the roofs, the Palazzo Vecchio at the civic heart and the Ponte Vecchio, the only bridge the retreating Germans spared in 1944. The Medici bankers who ran the place for much of the fifteenth to eighteenth centuries paid for most of what you are about to see, and they were rather good at it.
Read the complete Historic Centre of Florence write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Historic Centre of Florence comes up about 26 km into the recorded legs. 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.
about 62 km into the recorded legs you reach Villa La Magia. 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.
Historic Centre of San Gimignano, 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 sits at 157 km, about halfway. Next is back through Historic Centre of Florence.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Historic Centre of Florence write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Historic Centre of Florence comes up about 264 km into the recorded legs. Next is Villa de Il Trebbio.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Villa de Il Trebbio write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Villa de Il Trebbio closes the day.
Villa de Il Trebbio → Historic Centre of Florence is 26 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Historic Centre of Florence → Villa La Magia is 36 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 → 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 → back through Historic Centre of Florence is 35 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Historic Centre of Florence → Villa de Il Trebbio is 26 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.