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 Xochimilco it runs 201 km to Xochimilco; allow about 3 h 10 of riding. It goes by way of Historic Centre of Mexico City and Xochimi, Former college of San Francisco Javier in, Former convent of San Francisco in Tepeji and back through Former college of San Francisco Javier in. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 2,800 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. The line favours views over speed.
Mexico City is built on a lake, or rather it was, and Xochimilco is the part of that old water world that survived. Before the Spanish, the Aztecs and their neighbours built chinampas, narrow artificial islands of mud and reeds held in place by willow trees, and farmed them intensively to feed Tenochtitlan. Canals ran between the plots, and the whole system was a remarkably productive kind of garden. A part of it still works, and it earned a place on UNESCO's World Heritage list in 1987. The name is Nahuatl and means roughly the place of flowers, which suits the nurseries that fill the district.
Read the complete Xochimilco Federal District: Xochimilco 1 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Xochimilco Federal District: Xochimilco 1 is where the day begins. Next is Historic Centre of Mexico City and Xochimi.
In February 1978, electricity workers digging a trench near the Zocalo struck a huge carved stone disc, and the city found out what lay under its feet. The stone showed the dismembered goddess Coyolxauhqui, and it marked the base of the Templo Mayor, the double temple at the heart of Tenochtitlan. That accident changed Mexico City's idea of itself, and the colonial streets around the cathedral have since been opened up to reveal the Aztec capital below. The historic centre and the canals of Xochimilco, to the south, were inscribed together on the World Heritage list in 1987, because between them they tell how a lake civilisation became a colonial city.
Read the complete Historic Centre of Mexico City and Xochimi write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Historic Centre of Mexico City and Xochimi comes up about 21 km into the recorded legs. Next is Former college of San Francisco Javier in.
Tepotzotlán is a Pueblo Mágico just off the highway north of Mexico City, and its heart is a building that stops you in your tracks. The old Jesuit college of San Francisco Javier was a training centre for the order in New Spain, a place where novices learned theology and native languages before being sent out across the colony. When the Jesuits were expelled in 1767 the college passed to others, and today it houses the National Museum of the Viceroyalty, one of the best collections of colonial art in the country. It also forms part of the Camino Real de Tierra Adentro, the silver road that ran north from the capital towards Santa Fe, inscribed by UNESCO in 2010.
Read the complete Former college of San Francisco Javier in write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 70 km into the recorded legs you reach Former college of San Francisco Javier in. Next is Former convent of San Francisco in Tepeji.
Tepeji del Río is a busy town in the state of Hidalgo, on the old road north from Mexico City, and at its heart stands a sixteenth-century Franciscan convent, one of the many fortress-like monasteries built by the friars in the first decades after the Spanish conquest to evangelise the indigenous population. The church has a sober façade, a large open atrium where crowds of converts once gathered for mass, and a cloister with traces of mural paintings. The convent stands on the Camino Real de Tierra Adentro, and it is part of the UNESCO listing of that route. Like many of these early convents, it combines European Gothic and Renaissance forms with the work of indigenous craftsmen, whose hand can be seen in the carvings and paintings.
Read the complete Former convent of San Francisco in Tepeji write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Former convent of San Francisco in Tepeji, about halfway. Next is back through Former college of San Francisco Javier in.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Former college of San Francisco Javier in write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Former college of San Francisco Javier in sits at 140 km, about halfway. Next is back through Historic Centre of Mexico City and Xochimi.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Historic Centre of Mexico City and Xochimi write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Historic Centre of Mexico City and Xochimi comes up about 180 km into the recorded legs. Next is Xochimilco Federal District: Xochimilco 1.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Xochimilco Federal District: Xochimilco 1 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Xochimilco Federal District: Xochimilco 1 closes the day.
Xochimilco Federal District: Xochimilco 1 → Historic Centre of Mexico City and Xochimi is 21 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Historic Centre of Mexico City and Xochimi → Former college of San Francisco Javier in is 49 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Former college of San Francisco Javier in → Former convent of San Francisco in Tepeji is 30 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Former convent of San Francisco in Tepeji → back through Former college of San Francisco Javier in is 31 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Former college of San Francisco Javier in → back through Historic Centre of Mexico City and Xochimi is 49 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Historic Centre of Mexico City and Xochimi → Xochimilco Federal District: Xochimilco 1 is 21 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.