The Intrepida – “long” and “Intrepid” route
The Intrepida is a route on dirt roads, tracks, country roads, paved stretches. Every year, in autumn, a big “ciclostorica” (historical cycling race) is held, a celebration of vintage cycling. A non-competitive bike ride in company, surrounded by the beauty of the places.
It is not necessary to wait the event of the cycling race in order to take this route, that is permanently marked. You can do the short version, of 42 km, a long version of 85 km and the “intrepid” route”, which reaches 120 km.
The first part coincides with the short route, and starts from Piazza Baldaccio, at the entrance of Anghiari, descending the hill along Via Nova. Arrived at the plain, where the famous battle took place in 1440, we turn left, along Via del Molin Bianco, a beautiful stretch on dirt roads.
After passing in front of the beautiful parish church of Santa Maria in Micciano, we take the provincial road SP 47 to begin a challenging 6.5-kilometer climb that will take us to an altitude of 640 m.
Crossing the hill, we begin to descend along the SP 57 and after a few kilometers, we turn right to reach Ponte alla Piera.
We continue downhill and, after passing a small artificial lake, we turn right in the direction of Tavernelle. At the junction with SP 43, we turn right and then immediately left to visit the castle of Galbino.
We continue the descent, and after a while, we take a fork on the right with the indication of Pianettole, for a nice digression on dirt roads around the hill overlooked by the castle of the same name, which can also be reached, immediately after the crossroads, by a tough 1-kilometer climb at 17%.
Returned to the valley floor trail, shortly after we turn left, crossing the stream, then we turn right and arrive at Castle of Sorci.
A few hundred meters and here we are on SP 47, which the short version of the Intrepida takes a left to return to Anghiari. We instead turn right and then right again at the next traffic circle, continuing until Le Ville. Here we might make a stop, since we will not encounter any residential areas in the next 40 km.
After 15 km, here we are at the crossroads where a choice is imposed: do we feel “intrepid” enough to do the full 120 km route, or do we consider ourselves already satisfied and start the return journey, limiting ourselves to the 80 km route?
The extension of the trail, in any case, repeats from this point, so we will now continue the exposition of the entire “intrepid” trail; those who decide to return from here can scroll forward through the text until we pick up the thread of description from Monterchi, to our left.
To add our “Intrepid” piece, we then turn right, following the valley floor for a couple of kilometers. The road begins to climb, then descends to a crossroads that we will also see again later and that we cross continuing straight ahead. We climb up the opposite slope reaching a ridge dirt road.
We descend back to the bottom of the small valley and turn left, slightly uphill. After 3.5 km, we go straight across the previously crossed crossroads and, after another 3.5 km, the road begins to climb the hill. We return over 600 m above sea level to begin a descent to Lippiano, where we can make a stop to see the castle and finally replenish some energy inside a coffee bar.
Shortly after Lippiano, we return on SP 42 by turning left, to complete in the opposite direction the stretch we did earlier, go back to the junction of the choice between the two routes, and continue straight on to Monterchi, where the small museum containing the Madonna del Parto (Madonna of the Childbirth) by Piero della Francesca is located.
After Monterchi, we turn right onto the provincial road at valley floor, which we follow for a few kilometers, then turn left in the direction of Citerna. A little more and here we are at the traffic circle we crossed about 60 kilometers ago, to head this time towards the nearby Anghiari and thus end our day.