Why this ride
From Venice it runs 137 km to Venice; allow about 2 h 37 of riding. It goes by way of Villa Cornaro, Scrovegni Chapel Church of the Eremitani, Padua’s fourteenth-century fresco cycles and Basilica and Monastery of St. Anthony Orat.
CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
Venice day out · Basilica and Monastery of St. Anthony Orat
Plan this ride
- Recorded distance
- 137 km
- Riding-time estimate
- 2 h 37
- Journey
- Recorded itinerary
Distance and timing basis
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.
Waypoint introductions and full write-ups
1. Venice
You cannot ride a motorbike in Venice, and that is the best thing about it. The city is built on over a hundred small islands in a shallow lagoon, linked by about four hundred bridges, and there are no roads, only canals and narrow lanes. Cars and bikes stop at Piazzale Roma or at the parking islands, and everything else moves on foot or by water. So the ride begins on the mainland, at Mestre or Tronchetto, with the bike left in a guarded garage and a vaporetto to carry you in.
Read the complete Venice write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Venice is where the day begins. Next is Villa Cornaro.
2. Villa Cornaro
Piombino Dese is a quiet village on the flat plain between Padua and Treviso, the kind of place you pass through on the way to somewhere else. Stop on the main road, though, and look at the house set back behind its lawn. Villa Cornaro was designed by Andrea Palladio in the early 1550s for Giorgio Cornaro, a member of one of the grandest Venetian families, and its central portico rises in two storeys of columns, one loggia stacked on another like a temple front on a temple front. On the garden side the same double loggia faces a long lawn. It is one of the most copied houses in architectural history, and echoes of it can be seen in country houses across England and in mansions of the American South. The villa is part of the UNESCO site of the City of Vicenza and the Palladian Villas of the Veneto, and it opens to visitors on certain days in the warmer months.
Read the complete Villa Cornaro write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Villa Cornaro comes up about 36 km into the recorded legs. Next is Scrovegni Chapel Church of the Eremitani.
3. Scrovegni Chapel Church of the Eremitani
Giotto painted the Scrovegni Chapel in about two years, between 1303 and 1305, and it changed how Europeans drew people. Before him faces were icons; here they are tired, tender, furious, ashamed. The chapel was commissioned by Enrico Scrovegni, whose father Reginaldo was a moneylender so notorious that Dante put him in hell. Enrico built the chapel beside the family palace, so the story goes, to ease his father's soul, and the result is a small brick box covered inside with a blue ceiling of gold stars and thirty-odd scenes from the lives of Mary and Christ, ending with a vast Last Judgment on the west wall.
Read the complete Scrovegni Chapel Church of the Eremitani write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
At least about 64 km into the recorded legs you reach Scrovegni Chapel Church of the Eremitani. Next is Padua’s fourteenth-century fresco cycles.
4. Padua’s fourteenth-century fresco cycles
Giotto's chapel in Padua is smaller than most people expect, a plain brick hall tucked behind the Arena gardens, and the first surprise is that you are rationed. Visits are timed and short, and groups wait in a climate-controlled room first so that the breath and humidity of too many people do not harm the paint. Then the doors open and the walls turn blue. Around 1305 the banker Enrico Scrovegni commissioned Giotto to cover the whole interior with the lives of Mary and Christ, and what he painted, people with weight, faces with feeling, a sky that behaves like a sky, changed the course of European painting.
Read the complete Padua’s fourteenth-century fresco cycles write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Padua’s fourteenth-century fresco cycles, about halfway. Next is Basilica and Monastery of St. Anthony Orat, 19 km on.
5. Basilica and Monastery of St. Anthony Orat
Padua, in the Veneto, has one of the great pilgrimage churches of Europe, and it is the grave of a Portuguese friar. Anthony of Padua was born in Lisbon, joined the Franciscans and became a famous preacher, and he died near Padua in 1231 at the age of thirty-six. He was made a saint within a year, one of the fastest canonisations in history, and construction of the great basilica began soon after. The Basilica of Saint Anthony, which the people of Padua simply call il Santo, is a church of many domes, partly Romanesque and partly Gothic with a hint of Byzantine, and it holds the saint's tomb in a side chapel, where pilgrims press their hands against the marble.
Read the complete Basilica and Monastery of St. Anthony Orat write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Basilica and Monastery of St. Anthony Orat sits at 76 km, about halfway. Next is back through Padua’s fourteenth-century fresco cycles.
6. back through Padua’s fourteenth-century fresco cycles
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Padua’s fourteenth-century fresco cycles write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
back through Padua’s fourteenth-century fresco cycles comes up about 71 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Scrovegni Chapel Church of the Eremitani.
7. back through Scrovegni Chapel Church of the Eremitani
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Scrovegni Chapel Church of the Eremitani write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
about 72 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Scrovegni Chapel Church of the Eremitani. Next is back through Villa Cornaro.
8. back through Villa Cornaro
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Villa Cornaro write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
back through Villa Cornaro, late in the day. Next is Venice.
9. Venice
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Venice write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
The route ends here after 137 km.
Leg by leg
Venice to Villa Cornaro
Venice → Villa Cornaro is 36 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Villa Cornaro to Scrovegni Chapel Church of the Eremitani
Villa Cornaro → Scrovegni Chapel Church of the Eremitani is 28 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Scrovegni Chapel Church of the Eremitani to back through Villa Cornaro
back through Scrovegni Chapel Church of the Eremitani → back through Villa Cornaro is 30 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Villa Cornaro to Venice
back through Villa Cornaro → Venice is 37 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.