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.
A 485 km round trip from Bellinzona - roughly 8 h 45 in the saddle. The stops in between: Sacri Monti of Piedmont and Lombardy, Sacro Monte della Beata Vergine del Soccor, Valli di Lodano and Monte San Giorgio. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,850 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It crosses from Switzerland into Italy - carry ID and check vignette or toll rules. It suits an unhurried touring pace.
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For about 68 km this is Grand Tour of Switzerland, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
Bellinzona is the town that guarded the Alps. It lies on a flat piece of the Ticino valley where the routes from the Gotthard, San Bernardino and Lukmanier passes come together, and whoever held it controlled the way between northern Europe and Italy. Three castles, Castelgrande, Montebello and Sasso Corbaro, stand on rocky hills over the old town, linked by walls, and they form a UNESCO World Heritage site. The Milanese Visconti and Sforza dukes strengthened them in the fifteenth century, before the Swiss cantons took control, and Bellinzona stayed with them ever since. The oldest, Castelgrande, rises from a rocky outcrop right in the middle of town, and you can wander its courtyards and ramparts.
Read the complete Bellinzona write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Bellinzona is where the day begins. Next is Sacri Monti of Piedmont and Lombardy.
On the western shore of Lake Como, above the village of Ossuccio and facing the little Isola Comacina, a cobbled path climbs the hillside through olive groves and woods, past fourteen small chapels, to a sanctuary at the top. This is the Sacro Monte of Ossuccio, one of nine sacred mountains in Piedmont and Lombardy listed together by UNESCO. Built in the seventeenth century, the chapels illustrate the Mysteries of the Rosary with life-size terracotta and plaster figures arranged in dramatic scenes, each one a small piece of theatre.
Read the complete Sacri Monti of Piedmont and Lombardy write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Sacri Monti of Piedmont and Lombardy comes up about 68 km into the recorded legs. Next is Sacro Monte della Beata Vergine del Soccor.
The Madonna of Succour sits above Ossuccio, on the western shore of Lake Como, about halfway between Como and Menaggio. A cobbled path climbs through the village with fourteen small chapels along it, each holding painted terracotta figures that act out a scene from the life of Mary, and at the top there is a sanctuary with a terrace and a view across the water. It is one of the Sacri Monti of Piedmont and Lombardy, a group of hillside devotional complexes that UNESCO listed together in 2003. These were built in the Counter-Reformation as walkable theology: you could not read, so you walked and looked. The Ossuccio chapels date from the seventeenth century, and the little island you see below the slope is the Isola Comacina, the only island on the lake, with its own long and rather stormy history.
Read the complete Sacro Monte della Beata Vergine del Soccor write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 69 km into the recorded legs you reach Sacro Monte della Beata Vergine del Soccor. Next is Valli di Lodano.
Halfway up the Maggia valley in Ticino, a narrow side valley climbs steeply west from the village of Lodano into a forest that has been left almost untouched for decades. The Valli di Lodano, together with the neighbouring valleys of Busai and Soladino, form a forest reserve in which beech trees grow from the valley floor up to the tree line, and in 2021 they were added to the World Heritage site of the Ancient and Primeval Beech Forests of Europe, a series of forests spread across eighteen countries. Walking up into the reserve, you pass through old chestnut groves, then into the beech forest, with moss-covered boulders, streams and the sound of falling water everywhere.
Read the complete Valli di Lodano write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Valli di Lodano, about halfway. Next is Monte San Giorgio.
Monte San Giorgio is a wooded, pyramid-shaped mountain on the shores of Lake Lugano, straddling the border between Switzerland and Italy. To the eye, it is a pleasant green hill with villages on its slopes. To palaeontologists, it is one of the most important fossil sites in the world. About two hundred and forty million years ago, during the Middle Triassic, this area was a tropical lagoon, and its sediments preserved an extraordinary range of marine reptiles, fish, invertebrates and plants. The mountain was added to the UNESCO list in 2003 on the Swiss side, and in 2010 on the Italian side.
Read the complete Monte San Giorgio write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Monte San Giorgio sits at 164 km, about halfway. Next is back through Valli di Lodano.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Valli di Lodano write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Valli di Lodano comes up about 321 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Sacro Monte della Beata Vergine del Soccor.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Sacro Monte della Beata Vergine del Soccor write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 418 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Sacro Monte della Beata Vergine del Soccor. Next is back through Sacri Monti of Piedmont and Lombardy.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Sacri Monti of Piedmont and Lombardy write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Sacri Monti of Piedmont and Lombardy, late in the day. Next is Bellinzona.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Bellinzona write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 485 km.
Bellinzona → Sacri Monti of Piedmont and Lombardy is 68 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Sacro Monte della Beata Vergine del Soccor → Valli di Lodano is 97 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Valli di Lodano → Monte San Giorgio is 77 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Monte San Giorgio → back through Valli di Lodano is 78 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Valli di Lodano → back through Sacro Monte della Beata Vergine del Soccor is 97 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Sacri Monti of Piedmont and Lombardy → Bellinzona is 68 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.