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.
From Como it runs 208 km to Como; allow about 6 h 22 of riding. On the way it passes Monte San Giorgio, Sacri Monti of Piedmont and Lombardy, Sacro Monte della Beata Vergine del Soccor and back through Sacri Monti of Piedmont and Lombardy. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,100 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It crosses from Italy into Switzerland - carry ID and check vignette or toll rules.
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For about 31 km this is Lake Como Scenic Circuit, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
Lake Como is shaped like an upside-down Y, with the city of Como at the end of one leg, and it is the deepest lake in Italy, plunging to over four hundred metres. The Alps rise straight from the water, with villas and gardens on the shores, and ferries zigzagging between the villages. Como itself is a small and elegant city, with a Duomo that took centuries to build and mixes Gothic and Renaissance styles, a walled old town and a lakefront with a funicular climbing to the hill village of Brunate. It was the birthplace of Alessandro Volta, the inventor of the battery, and the unit of electrical potential carries his name.
Read the complete Como write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Como 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 31 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 47 km into the recorded legs you reach Monte San Giorgio. 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, about halfway. 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.
Sacro Monte della Beata Vergine del Soccor sits at 52 km, about halfway. 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 comes up about 106 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 162 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 Como.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Como write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 208 km.
Como → Monte San Giorgio is 31 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Monte San Giorgio → Monte San Giorgio is 16 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Monte San Giorgio → Sacri Monti of Piedmont and Lombardy is 57 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Sacri Monti of Piedmont and Lombardy → back through Monte San Giorgio is 56 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 17 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Monte San Giorgio → Como is 32 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.