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.
488 km from Milan to Milan, about 7 h 35 of riding. On the way it passes Il Sabbione o settentrionale, Sacri Monti of Piedmont and Lombardy, Sacro Monte della Beata Vergine del Soccor and Mercurago. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,100 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It suits an unhurried touring pace.
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For about 89 km this is Grand Tour of Switzerland, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
Milan does not try to charm you, and that is part of its charm. It is Italy's business capital, a city of fashion, finance and design that works hard and dresses well. At the centre stands the Duomo, a Gothic cathedral begun in 1386 and not finished for about five centuries, a forest of white marble spires and statues, and you can climb onto the roof among them. Beside it, the glass-roofed Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II is a nineteenth-century shopping arcade, and beyond it La Scala opera house.
Read the complete Milan write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Milan is where the day begins. 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.
Il Sabbione o settentrionale comes up about 68 km into the recorded legs. 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.
about 157 km into the recorded legs you reach Sacri Monti of Piedmont and Lombardy. 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, 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 211 km, about halfway. 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.
back through Sacro Monte della Beata Vergine del Soccor comes up about 334 km into the recorded legs. 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.
about 335 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Sacri Monti of Piedmont and Lombardy. 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.
back through Il Sabbione o settentrionale, late in the day. Next is Milan.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Milan write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 488 km.
Milan → Il Sabbione o settentrionale is 68 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Il Sabbione o settentrionale → Sacri Monti of Piedmont and Lombardy is 89 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Sacro Monte della Beata Vergine del Soccor → Mercurago is 87 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Mercurago → back through Sacro Monte della Beata Vergine del Soccor is 89 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Sacri Monti of Piedmont and Lombardy → back through Il Sabbione o settentrionale is 88 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Il Sabbione o settentrionale → Milan is 68 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.