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 518 km to Lugano; allow about 10 h 11 of riding. On the way it passes The castrum with the Torba Tower and the c, Il Sabbione o settentrionale, Valli di Lodano and Mercurago. 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. A steady touring day rather than a sprint.
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 The castrum with the Torba Tower and the c.
The Lombards get a bad press in most history books, which tend to treat them as the barbarians who arrived in Italy in 568 and broke what was left of Roman order. Castelseprio tells a subtler story. On a wooded spur above the Olona valley, north-west of Milan, stand the ruins of a late Roman and Lombard castrum, a fortified town that controlled the road between the plain and the Alpine lakes, and just outside its walls is the little church of Santa Maria foris portas, whose frescoes are among the most mysterious and beautiful paintings of early medieval Europe. Down by the river, the stout stone Torba tower, later part of a Benedictine nunnery, completes the group. Together they form one of the sites in the UNESCO listing of the Lombards in Italy.
Read the complete The castrum with the Torba Tower and the c write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The castrum with the Torba Tower and the c comes up about 47 km into the recorded legs. Next is Il Sabbione o settentrionale.
Lake Monate is small, round and remarkably clean, set in the gentle hills of the Varese province between Lake Maggiore and Lake Varese. It has no river flowing into it, being fed by springs, and its water is among the clearest of any lake in Lombardy, which makes it a favourite with swimmers on hot summer days. On its northern shore, near Cadrezzate, the site known as Il Sabbione preserves the remains of a prehistoric village built on piles at the water's edge, part of the UNESCO listing of prehistoric pile dwellings around the Alps. The Varese area is rich in such sites, and the finds from them, including pottery, tools and the remains of wooden canoes, are displayed in local museums.
Read the complete Il Sabbione o settentrionale write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 75 km into the recorded legs you reach Il Sabbione o settentrionale. 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 Mercurago.
Just south of Arona, at the southern tip of Lago Maggiore, a small regional park protects a landscape of woods, meadows and peat bogs called the Lagoni di Mercurago. The lagoni are small ponds and wetlands formed after the retreat of the glaciers, and in the nineteenth century, while peat was being dug, the remains of a Bronze Age pile dwelling settlement were found here, including a wooden wheel. Mercurago is part of the UNESCO site of prehistoric pile dwellings around the Alps.
Read the complete Mercurago write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Mercurago sits at 214 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 353 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Il Sabbione o settentrionale.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Il Sabbione o settentrionale write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 441 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Il Sabbione o settentrionale. Next is back through The castrum with the Torba Tower and the c.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete The castrum with the Torba Tower and the c write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through The castrum with the Torba Tower and the c, 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 518 km.
Lugano → The castrum with the Torba Tower and the c is 47 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
The castrum with the Torba Tower and the c → Il Sabbione o settentrionale is 28 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Il Sabbione o settentrionale → Valli di Lodano is 87 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Valli di Lodano → Mercurago is 96 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Mercurago → back through Valli di Lodano is 95 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Valli di Lodano → back through Il Sabbione o settentrionale is 88 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Il Sabbione o settentrionale → back through The castrum with the Torba Tower and the c is 28 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through The castrum with the Torba Tower and the c → Lugano is 48 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.