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 Lugano it runs 225 km to Lugano; allow about 4 h 27 of riding. It goes by way of Sacri Monti of Piedmont and Lombardy, Sacro Monte della Beata Vergine del Soccor, Chateau de Sasso Corbaro and Rempart du bourg. 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 37 km this is Grand Tour of Switzerland, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
Lugano belongs to Switzerland by history and to Italy by temperament. It sits on the northern shore of a lake of the same name, in the canton of Ticino, with mountains, Monte San Salvatore and Monte Brè, rising straight from the water on either side. Italian is the language, the coffee is Italian, and the pace of life slows by a visible notch compared with Zurich. Ticino joined the Swiss Confederation only at the start of the nineteenth century, after centuries as subject territory of the Swiss cantons, and the town still has the atmosphere of a place with its own story.
Read the complete Lugano write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Lugano 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 37 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 38 km into the recorded legs you reach Sacro Monte della Beata Vergine del Soccor. Next is Chateau de Sasso Corbaro.
Bellinzona sits at the point where the valleys of the southern Alps converge before opening towards Lake Maggiore and Italy, and whoever held it controlled the routes over the Gotthard, the Lukmanier and the San Bernardino passes. In the fifteenth century the Dukes of Milan built a formidable system of defences here: three castles and a wall that ran across the whole valley floor. Castelgrande, on a rocky hill above the old town, Montebello, on the slope above it, and Sasso Corbaro, highest of all on a wooded spur, together form a World Heritage site. Sasso Corbaro was built in 1479, in a matter of months, after the Swiss Confederates defeated the Milanese at the Battle of Giornico, a short way up the Leventina valley, and the Duke wanted to plug the gap in his defences.
Read the complete Chateau de Sasso Corbaro write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Chateau de Sasso Corbaro, about halfway. Next is Rempart du bourg.
Most people who stop in Bellinzona look up at the castles. Spend a little time at street level instead and you will find the other half of the story: the walls of the old borgo, the medieval town that grew up beneath Castel Grande. Stretches of these ramparts still enclose the old centre, linking the castles to each other and to the great Murata, the wall that once ran right across the floor of the Ticino valley to the river, so that nothing could pass north or south without the Duke of Milan's permission.
Read the complete Rempart du bourg write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Rempart du bourg sits at 59 km, about halfway. Next is back through Chateau de Sasso Corbaro.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Chateau de Sasso Corbaro write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Chateau de Sasso Corbaro comes up about 117 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 189 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 Lugano.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Lugano write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 225 km.
Lugano → Sacri Monti of Piedmont and Lombardy is 37 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Sacro Monte della Beata Vergine del Soccor → Chateau de Sasso Corbaro is 72 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Chateau de Sasso Corbaro → back through Sacro Monte della Beata Vergine del Soccor is 72 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Sacri Monti of Piedmont and Lombardy → Lugano is 37 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.