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.
A 315 km round trip from Bodio - roughly 5 h 49 in the saddle. The stops in between: Sacro Monte della SS.Trinità, Sacro Monte di San Francesco d’Orta San Gi, Sacro Monte Calvario and back through Sacro Monte di San Francesco d’Orta San Gi. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,850 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. The line favours views over speed.
Gavirate, on the northern shore of the Lago di Varese in Lombardy, has a sweet claim to fame: it is the home of the brutti ma buoni, ugly but good, crunchy biscuits made with hazelnuts and egg whites, which were reportedly invented here in the nineteenth century and are still sold in local pastry shops. The lake itself is a small, shallow lake surrounded by low hills, and its shores were home to some of the earliest pile-dwelling villages in Italy. The site of Bodio Centrale, also known as delle Monete, on the southern shore near Bodio Lomnago, is part of the Prehistoric Pile Dwellings around the Alps, listed by UNESCO in 2011.
Read the complete Bodio centrale o delle Monete write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Bodio centrale o delle Monete is where the day begins. Next is Sacro Monte della SS.Trinità, 37 km on.
High above the western shore of Lake Maggiore, in a forest of chestnut and beech above the village of Ghiffa, a small sanctuary dedicated to the Holy Trinity looks out over the water to the hills of Lombardy. The Sacro Monte of Ghiffa began in the seventeenth century as a series of chapels along a path, each meant to illustrate a scene from sacred history for pilgrims, but it was never completed as planned. It is the smallest of the nine Sacri Monti of Piedmont and Lombardy listed by UNESCO in 2003, and its charm lies in its intimacy and its setting: a few chapels, a porticoed walkway and a church in the woods, with the lake shining below.
Read the complete Sacro Monte della SS.Trinità write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Sacro Monte della SS.Trinità comes up about 70 km into the recorded legs. Next is Sacro Monte di San Francesco d’Orta San Gi.
Lake Orta is the quiet sister of Lake Maggiore, smaller, calmer and more mysterious, and on a wooded hill above its prettiest town stands a holy mountain dedicated to Saint Francis of Assisi. The Sacro Monte di Orta is a path through a park of beech and chestnut trees, linking twenty chapels built from the end of the sixteenth century onward, each containing life-size terracotta statues and frescoes depicting scenes from the life of the saint. It is one of the nine holy mountains of Piedmont and Lombardy listed together by UNESCO in 2003, created during the Counter-Reformation as places of pilgrimage and devotion.
Read the complete Sacro Monte di San Francesco d’Orta San Gi write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 106 km into the recorded legs you reach Sacro Monte di San Francesco d’Orta San Gi. Next is Sacro Monte Calvario.
Domodossola's holy mountain rises immediately above the town, on the wooded Mattarella hill, and the walk or ride up gives you the whole Ossola valley at your feet. The Sacro Monte Calvario was begun in the seventeenth century as a devotional path of chapels depicting the Passion of Christ, each holding painted and sculpted scenes, leading up to a sanctuary church at the top. It is one of the nine Sacri Monti of Piedmont and Lombardy inscribed together on the UNESCO list, and it has a particular link with Antonio Rosmini, the philosopher-priest who founded his religious institute here in the nineteenth century.
Read the complete Sacro Monte Calvario write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Sacro Monte Calvario, about halfway. Next is back through Sacro Monte di San Francesco d’Orta San Gi.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Sacro Monte di San Francesco d’Orta San Gi write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Sacro Monte di San Francesco d’Orta San Gi sits at 147 km, about halfway. Next is back through Sacro Monte della SS.Trinità, 36 km on.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Sacro Monte della SS.Trinità write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Sacro Monte della SS.Trinità comes up about 243 km into the recorded legs. Next is Bodio centrale o delle Monete.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Bodio centrale o delle Monete write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Bodio centrale o delle Monete closes the day.
Bodio centrale o delle Monete → Sacro Monte della SS.Trinità is 70 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Sacro Monte della SS.Trinità → Sacro Monte di San Francesco d’Orta San Gi is 36 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Sacro Monte di San Francesco d’Orta San Gi → Sacro Monte Calvario is 50 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Sacro Monte Calvario → back through Sacro Monte di San Francesco d’Orta San Gi is 51 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Sacro Monte di San Francesco d’Orta San Gi → back through Sacro Monte della SS.Trinità is 36 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Sacro Monte della SS.Trinità → Bodio centrale o delle Monete is 71 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.