Castello di Rivoli and Sacro Monte della Beata Vergine
Plan this ride
Recorded distance
240 km
Riding-time estimate
5 h 06
Journey
Recorded itinerary
Distance and timing basis
The recorded total and the leg detail need reconciliation. Inspect the leg notes before using this record for timing or navigation. 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 Rivoli it runs 240 km to Rivoli; allow about 5 h 06 of riding. It goes by way of Sacro Monte di Belmonte, Ivrea, Sacro Monte della Beata Vergine and back through Ivrea. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,750 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available.
Waypoint introductions and full write-ups
1. Castello di Rivoli
Rivoli stands on a ridge at the mouth of the Susa valley, where the Alps give way to the plain of Turin, and the Savoy dukes liked it for exactly that reason: from the castle terrace, you can see the city to the east and the wall of mountains to the west. A fortress stood here in the Middle Ages, and in the eighteenth century the architect Filippo Juvarra began to rebuild it as a grand residence for Victor Amadeus II. The duke, who had become King of Sardinia, ended his days here in 1732, reportedly confined by his own son, and the great project was never finished.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Castello di Rivoli is where the day begins. Next is Sacro Monte di Belmonte.
2. Sacro Monte di Belmonte
On a granite hill rising above the Canavese plain north of Turin, the Sacro Monte di Belmonte looks out over the foothills toward the Alps. The sanctuary, run by Franciscan friars, has a church and a circuit of chapels representing the stations of the Passion, built in the early eighteenth century on a site that had long been a place of pilgrimage. It is part of the UNESCO-listed Sacri Monti of Piedmont and Lombardy, and the walk around the chapels, under chestnut and oak trees, is calm and shady even in summer.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Sacro Monte di Belmonte comes up 34 km in. Next is Ivrea.
3. Ivrea
Ivrea is the town Olivetti built, or at least rebuilt. In the twentieth century the Olivetti company, famous for typewriters, calculators and some of the first personal computers, turned this small Piedmontese town into a showcase of what industry could be: factories with glass walls and natural light, worker housing, libraries, nurseries and social services designed by the best architects of the day. Adriano Olivetti believed a company should serve its community, and the result was listed by UNESCO in 2018 as an industrial city of the twentieth century. Walk along Corso Jervis and you can see the buildings still standing, some reused, some waiting.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
69 km in you reach Ivrea. Next is Sacro Monte della Beata Vergine.
4. Sacro Monte della Beata Vergine
Oropa is a sanctuary on a scale that surprises everyone who comes up the valley from Biella for the first time. At almost twelve hundred metres, in a bowl of mountains, a vast complex of churches, courtyards, porticoes and pilgrim lodgings rises in terraces, built over several centuries around an ancient chapel that holds a Black Madonna, a wooden statue of the Virgin that legend attributes to St Luke. Above the main buildings, a Sacro Monte of chapels with life-size statues illustrates the life of Mary along a wooded path. It is one of the nine Sacri Monti of Piedmont and Lombardy listed by UNESCO in 2003, and one of the most important Marian shrines in the Alps.