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.
345 km from Bellinzona to Bellinzona, about 5 h 03 of riding. On the way it passes Isolino Virginia-Camilla-Isola di San Biag, Sacro Monte Calvario and back through Isolino Virginia-Camilla-Isola di San Biag. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,850 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It crosses from Switzerland into Italy - carry ID and check vignette or toll rules.
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For about 83 km this is Grand Tour of Switzerland, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
Bellinzona has three castles and a wall, and together they once decided who got through the Alps. The town sits at the head of the Ticino valley where several routes meet, including the roads to the San Bernardino and Gotthard passes, and whoever held it controlled the north-south traffic between Milan and the Swiss lands. Montebello is the middle one of the three, perched on a small hill on the east side of town, and the smallest of the trio. It was built in stages from the thirteenth century onward and expanded by the Visconti and Sforza dukes of Milan before the Swiss cantons of Uri, Schwyz and Nidwalden took over around 1500.
Read the complete Chateau de Montebello write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Chateau de Montebello is where the day begins. Next is Isolino Virginia-Camilla-Isola di San Biag.
Lago di Varese is the quiet one. The big lakes, Maggiore and Lugano, grab the postcards and the coach tours, while this shallow, reedy sheet of water just west of Varese gets on with being pretty in a modest way. Off its western shore, a few hundred metres out from Biandronno, floats a tiny wooded island called Isolino Virginia, and that speck of land is one of the most important prehistoric sites in the Alpine world.
Read the complete Isolino Virginia-Camilla-Isola di San Biag write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Isolino Virginia-Camilla-Isola di San Biag comes up about 83 km into the recorded legs. 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.
about 172 km into the recorded legs you reach Sacro Monte Calvario. Next is back through Isolino Virginia-Camilla-Isola di San Biag.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Isolino Virginia-Camilla-Isola di San Biag write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Isolino Virginia-Camilla-Isola di San Biag, late in the day. Next is Chateau de Montebello.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Chateau de Montebello write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Chateau de Montebello. That is the ride.
Chateau de Montebello → Isolino Virginia-Camilla-Isola di San Biag is 83 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Isolino Virginia-Camilla-Isola di San Biag → Sacro Monte Calvario is 89 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Sacro Monte Calvario → back through Isolino Virginia-Camilla-Isola di San Biag is 90 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Isolino Virginia-Camilla-Isola di San Biag → Chateau de Montebello is 83 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.