The recorded total and the leg detail need reconciliation. Inspect the leg notes before using this record for timing or navigation. Stops, delays, approach and any separate return travel add time. Basis: producer-declared routed record.
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Distance and riding time are measured on the routed road. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
A 397 km round trip from Aosta - roughly 7 h 33 in the saddle. The stops in between: Sacro Monte di Belmonte, Sacro Monte della Beata Vergine, Ivrea and back through Ivrea. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 2,400 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It suits an unhurried touring pace.
Waypoint introductions and full write-ups
1. Aosta
Aosta is a Roman town with the Alps standing around it like a stage set. The Romans founded it in 25 BC as Augusta Praetoria, after subduing the local Salassi tribe, and they laid it out on a neat grid that still shapes the old centre. The Arch of Augustus, the Porta Praetoria gate, and the remains of a theatre with a surviving wall nearly twenty metres high stand among cafes and shops, and snow-capped peaks rise at the end of every street. It has been called the Rome of the Alps.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Aosta is where the day begins. Next is Sacro Monte di Belmonte.
2. Sacro Monte di Belmonte
On a granite hill rising above the Canavese plain north of Turin, the Sacro Monte di Belmonte looks out over the foothills toward the Alps. The sanctuary, run by Franciscan friars, has a church and a circuit of chapels representing the stations of the Passion, built in the early eighteenth century on a site that had long been a place of pilgrimage. It is part of the UNESCO-listed Sacri Monti of Piedmont and Lombardy, and the walk around the chapels, under chestnut and oak trees, is calm and shady even in summer.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Sacro Monte di Belmonte comes up 37 km in. Next is Sacro Monte della Beata Vergine.
3. Sacro Monte della Beata Vergine
Oropa is a sanctuary on a scale that surprises everyone who comes up the valley from Biella for the first time. At almost twelve hundred metres, in a bowl of mountains, a vast complex of churches, courtyards, porticoes and pilgrim lodgings rises in terraces, built over several centuries around an ancient chapel that holds a Black Madonna, a wooden statue of the Virgin that legend attributes to St Luke. Above the main buildings, a Sacro Monte of chapels with life-size statues illustrates the life of Mary along a wooded path. It is one of the nine Sacri Monti of Piedmont and Lombardy listed by UNESCO in 2003, and one of the most important Marian shrines in the Alps.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
At least 88 km in you reach Sacro Monte della Beata Vergine. Next is Ivrea.
4. Ivrea
Ivrea is the town Olivetti built, or at least rebuilt. In the twentieth century the Olivetti company, famous for typewriters, calculators and some of the first personal computers, turned this small Piedmontese town into a showcase of what industry could be: factories with glass walls and natural light, worker housing, libraries, nurseries and social services designed by the best architects of the day. Adriano Olivetti believed a company should serve its community, and the result was listed by UNESCO in 2018 as an industrial city of the twentieth century. Walk along Corso Jervis and you can see the buildings still standing, some reused, some waiting.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
The route ends here after 397 km.
Leg by leg
Aosta to Sacro Monte di Belmonte
Aosta → Sacro Monte di Belmonte is 65 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Sacro Monte di Belmonte to Sacro Monte della Beata Vergine
Sacro Monte di Belmonte → Sacro Monte della Beata Vergine is 54 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Sacro Monte della Beata Vergine to Ivrea
Sacro Monte della Beata Vergine → Ivrea is 28 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Ivrea to back through Sacro Monte della Beata Vergine
back through Ivrea → back through Sacro Monte della Beata Vergine is 28 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Sacro Monte della Beata Vergine to back through Sacro Monte di Belmonte
back through Sacro Monte della Beata Vergine → back through Sacro Monte di Belmonte is 54 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Sacro Monte di Belmonte to Aosta
back through Sacro Monte di Belmonte → Aosta is 65 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.