Belvedere and Lavagnone

Scenic road chapters

Waypoint introductions and full write-ups

1. 1. Belvedere

   South of Lake Garda the mountains step back and the land turns into a theatre of hills. Those are the moraines, left by the glacier that once filled the valley and dropped its load of gravel in a series of curved ridges as it melted. The belvedere on this stretch is part of that gentle amphitheatre, a viewpoint over vineyards and fields on the way between Peschiera del Garda and the old battlefields at San Martino and Solferino, and in clear weather you can see the Alps rising behind the lake.

   Read the complete Belvedere write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Belvedere is where the day begins. Next is Lucone.

2. 2. Lucone

   Lucone is a small basin in the green hills of the Valtènesi, just west of Lake Garda, and it is one of the sites in the UNESCO listing of prehistoric pile dwellings around the Alps. Once there was a little lake here, and during the Bronze Age people built villages of wooden houses raised on piles along its shore. The lake later turned to marsh and peat, which preserved the timbers, pottery and organic remains in waterlogged conditions for thousands of years. What you see today is a gentle, wooded hollow among vineyards and fields, and you need some imagination; the finds are in the archaeological museum in nearby Gavardo.

   Read the complete Lucone write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Lucone comes up about 28 km into the recorded legs. Next is Lavagnone.

3. 3. Lavagnone

   Lavagnone does not look like much, and that is rather the point. South of Lake Garda, behind Desenzano, the landscape is a rumple of low hills left by the glacier that once filled the lake basin, and in a hollow among them lies a small peat basin that was once a shallow lake. Around four thousand years ago, in the Bronze Age, people built houses on timber piles at its edge, and when the water level fell and the peat built up, the wood was preserved in the mud like a time capsule.

   Read the complete Lavagnone write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   about 49 km into the recorded legs you reach Lavagnone. Next is back through Lucone.

4. 4. back through Lucone

   Return visit. Read the place description above.

   Read the complete Lucone write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   back through Lucone, late in the day. Next is Belvedere.

5. 5. Belvedere

   Return visit. Read the place description above.

   Read the complete Belvedere write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Back at Belvedere. That is the ride.