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.
278 km from Quarrata to Quarrata, about 5 h 15 of riding. It goes by way of Villa de Castello, Historic Centre of San Gimignano, Historic Centre of Siena and back through Historic Centre of San Gimignano. The line favours views over speed.
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For about 31 km this is Chiantigiana Wine Road, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
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 is where the day begins. Next is Villa de Castello.
The Villa di Castello stands on the north-western edge of Florence, in the flat land below Monte Morello, and the huge city has grown right up to its gates. Sesto Fiorentino, a town of forty-five thousand people, is three kilometres away, and the centre of Florence a few more. The villa is one of the Medici villas that UNESCO inscribed in 2013, and it is an unusual one, because the garden is the main attraction and the house inside is plain.
Read the complete Villa de Castello write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Villa de Castello comes up about 31 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 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 165 km, about halfway. Next is back through Villa de Castello.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Villa de Castello write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Villa de Castello comes up about 246 km into the recorded legs. Next is 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.
Villa La Magia closes the day.
Villa La Magia → Villa de Castello is 31 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Villa de Castello → Historic Centre of San Gimignano is 60 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 de Castello is 63 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Villa de Castello → Villa La Magia is 32 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.