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 Fiesole it runs 418 km to Fiesole; allow about 7 h 02 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 83 km this is Chiantigiana Wine Road, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
Fiesole sits on a hill above Florence, and it has looked down on the city for much longer than Florence has existed. The Etruscans founded a settlement here, and the Romans built a theatre, baths and a temple that are still visible. When the Medici came to power in the fifteenth century they chose the slope below Fiesole for a country villa, and Giovanni de' Medici, the younger son of Cosimo, commissioned Michelozzo to design one around 1450. The result, Villa Medici, is built on terraces cut into the hillside, with a loggia that opens out over a sweeping view of the Arno valley and the dome of Florence cathedral.
Read the complete Villa Medici de Fiesole write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Villa Medici de Fiesole 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 83 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 208 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 Medici de Fiesole.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Villa Medici de Fiesole write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Villa Medici de Fiesole. That is the ride.
Villa Medici de Fiesole → Historic Centre of Siena is 83 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 Medici de Fiesole is 81 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.