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: planning record, not independently verified geometry.
Reading history stays on this device. My road watch requires a separate selection; opening it does not subscribe this ride.
Distances and riding times are planning figures. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
From Bellinzona it runs 501 km to Bellinzona; allow about 8 h 38 of riding. On the way it passes Monte San Giorgio, Sacro Monte della SS.Trinità, Sacro Monte del Rosario di Varese and back through Sacro Monte della SS.Trinità. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,500 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It crosses from Switzerland into Italy - carry ID and check vignette or toll rules.
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For about 44 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 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 comes up about 106 km into the recorded legs.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Monte San Giorgio write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 111 km into the recorded legs you reach Monte San Giorgio. Next is Sacro Monte della SS.Trinità, 63 km on.
High above the western shore of Lake Maggiore, in a forest of chestnut and beech above the village of Ghiffa, a small sanctuary dedicated to the Holy Trinity looks out over the water to the hills of Lombardy. The Sacro Monte of Ghiffa began in the seventeenth century as a series of chapels along a path, each meant to illustrate a scene from sacred history for pilgrims, but it was never completed as planned. It is the smallest of the nine Sacri Monti of Piedmont and Lombardy listed by UNESCO in 2003, and its charm lies in its intimacy and its setting: a few chapels, a porticoed walkway and a church in the woods, with the lake shining below.
Read the complete Sacro Monte della SS.Trinità write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Sacro Monte della SS.Trinità, about halfway. Next is Sacro Monte del Rosario di Varese.
Above Varese, on the flank of the Campo dei Fiori, a cobbled path climbs two kilometres or so through woods and past fourteen chapels to a medieval sanctuary and the tiny village of Santa Maria del Monte. Each chapel contains a life-size scene of the mysteries of the Rosary, with painted terracotta figures and frescoed backgrounds, and the whole ensemble, built in the seventeenth century under the architect Giuseppe Bernascone, is one of the nine Sacri Monti of Piedmont and Lombardy inscribed as a World Heritage Site in 2003.
Read the complete Sacro Monte del Rosario di Varese write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Sacro Monte del Rosario di Varese sits at 251 km, about halfway. Next is back through Sacro Monte della SS.Trinità, 63 km on.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Sacro Monte della SS.Trinità write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Sacro Monte della SS.Trinità comes up about 306 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Monte San Giorgio.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Monte San Giorgio write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 385 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Monte San Giorgio.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Monte San Giorgio write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Monte San Giorgio, 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 501 km.
Bellinzona → Monte San Giorgio is 106 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Monte San Giorgio → Monte San Giorgio is 5 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Monte San Giorgio → Sacro Monte della SS.Trinità is 79 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Sacro Monte della SS.Trinità → Sacro Monte del Rosario di Varese is 58 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Sacro Monte del Rosario di Varese → back through Sacro Monte della SS.Trinità is 58 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Sacro Monte della SS.Trinità → back through Monte San Giorgio is 79 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Monte San Giorgio → back through Monte San Giorgio is 5 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Monte San Giorgio → Bellinzona is 106 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.