Dante may have ridden past here. In the twelfth canto of the Inferno he compares a steep, broken descent in hell to a great landslide on the Adige south of Trento, and most scholars believe he meant the Lavini di Marco, the chaos of boulders and bare rock above this village. The slope has another secret: in the 1990s, scientists found hundreds of dinosaur footprints preserved in its limestone slabs, and a path now leads up to them.
Marco is a quiet village in the Vallagarina, the stretch of the Adige valley between Trento and Verona, just south of Rovereto. The valley is broad and busy, with the motorway, the railway and the river running side by side, but the slopes on either side rise steeply into the mountains. Brentonico, on a plateau above, is the gateway to Monte Baldo, a long ridge with alpine meadows and views over Lake Garda.
Rovereto, a few minutes north, is a lively town with a fine modern art museum, the MART, and a huge bell, the Campana dei Caduti, cast from the bronze of First World War cannons and rung every evening in memory of the dead of all wars. The front line ran through these mountains between 1915 and 1918, and trenches and forts can still be found on the heights.
Food is the reason to stop. The local wine is Marzemino, a light red that Mozart mentions in Don Giovanni, and the trattorie serve canederli, bread dumplings, and polenta with local cheese. Mori, next door, has bakeries, cafés and fuel.
From Mori the road climbs over the low Passo San Giovanni to Torbole on the north shore of Lake Garda, a short ride with a view of the lake that hits you all at once. In the other direction, small roads climb to Brentonico and the Monte Baldo plateau, with tight bends and steep grades.