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 350 km round trip from Sesto Fiorentino - roughly 7 h 02 in the saddle. It goes by way of Villa de Cerreto Guidi, Historic Centre of San Gimignano, Historic Centre of Siena and Val d'Orcia. 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 45 km this is Chiantigiana Wine Road, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
La Petraia stands on the slope above Castello, on the north-western edge of Florence, and the first thing you notice is its tower, a leftover from the medieval fortress that stood here before the Medici made it a villa. Ferdinando de' Medici bought it in the 1560s and had Buontalenti reshape it, keeping the tower and building around it, so that the house looks like a small castle that learned manners. The garden below is laid out in terraces, with a fountain topped by a Venus wringing out her hair, a famous work by Giambologna.
Read the complete Villa de la Petraia write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Villa de la Petraia is where the day begins. 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 comes up about 41 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 91 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 Val d'Orcia.
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 sits at 171 km, about halfway. 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 comes up about 214 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 258 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Historic Centre of San Gimignano. 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, late in the day. Next is Villa de la Petraia.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Villa de la Petraia write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 350 km.
Villa de la Petraia → Villa de Cerreto Guidi is 41 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Villa de Cerreto Guidi → Historic Centre of San Gimignano is 50 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Historic Centre of San Gimignano → Historic Centre of Siena is 45 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Historic Centre of Siena → Val d'Orcia is 38 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Val d'Orcia → back through Historic Centre of Siena is 40 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through 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 de Cerreto Guidi is 50 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Villa de Cerreto Guidi → Villa de la Petraia is 42 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.