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.
From Brembate it runs 239 km to Brembate; allow about 4 h 12 of riding. The stops in between: Church and Dominican Convent of Santa Mari, The castrum with the Torba Tower and the c, Il Sabbione o settentrionale and back through The castrum with the Torba Tower and the c. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Crespi d'Adda is a whole company town, built from 1878 by the Crespi family of cotton manufacturers on a bend of the Adda river where the water could turn their turbines. Around the mill they laid out rows of neat houses with gardens for the workers, larger villas for the managers, a school, a church that copies the Renaissance church of Santa Maria di Piazza in Busto Arsizio, a washhouse, a hospital, and, on a slight rise at the end of the main street, a cemetery with a strange, almost Mayan-looking mausoleum for the family. It was a paternalistic utopia in which the company looked after its workers from cradle to grave, and UNESCO listed it in 1995 as one of the best-preserved examples of its kind in Europe.
Read the complete Crespi d'Adda write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Crespi d'Adda is where the day begins. Next is Church and Dominican Convent of Santa Mari.
Most people who come to Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan are here for one painting, and they are right to be. On the wall of the old refectory of the Dominican convent, Leonardo da Vinci painted the Last Supper in the 1490s for Duke Ludovico Sforza, and despite his experimental technique, which began to fail almost at once, despite centuries of damage and despite a bomb that destroyed much of the building in 1943, the painting survives. The wall was protected with sandbags, and the long restoration completed in 1999 revealed colours and faces that had been hidden for centuries.
Read the complete Church and Dominican Convent of Santa Mari write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Church and Dominican Convent of Santa Mari comes up about 46 km into the recorded legs. Next is The castrum with the Torba Tower and the c.
The Lombards get a bad press in most history books, which tend to treat them as the barbarians who arrived in Italy in 568 and broke what was left of Roman order. Castelseprio tells a subtler story. On a wooded spur above the Olona valley, north-west of Milan, stand the ruins of a late Roman and Lombard castrum, a fortified town that controlled the road between the plain and the Alpine lakes, and just outside its walls is the little church of Santa Maria foris portas, whose frescoes are among the most mysterious and beautiful paintings of early medieval Europe. Down by the river, the stout stone Torba tower, later part of a Benedictine nunnery, completes the group. Together they form one of the sites in the UNESCO listing of the Lombards in Italy.
Read the complete The castrum with the Torba Tower and the c write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 93 km into the recorded legs you reach The castrum with the Torba Tower and the c. Next is Il Sabbione o settentrionale.
Lake Monate is small, round and remarkably clean, set in the gentle hills of the Varese province between Lake Maggiore and Lake Varese. It has no river flowing into it, being fed by springs, and its water is among the clearest of any lake in Lombardy, which makes it a favourite with swimmers on hot summer days. On its northern shore, near Cadrezzate, the site known as Il Sabbione preserves the remains of a prehistoric village built on piles at the water's edge, part of the UNESCO listing of prehistoric pile dwellings around the Alps. The Varese area is rich in such sites, and the finds from them, including pottery, tools and the remains of wooden canoes, are displayed in local museums.
Read the complete Il Sabbione o settentrionale write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Il Sabbione o settentrionale, about halfway. Next is back through The castrum with the Torba Tower and the c.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete The castrum with the Torba Tower and the c write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through The castrum with the Torba Tower and the c sits at 159 km, about halfway. Next is back through Church and Dominican Convent of Santa Mari.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Church and Dominican Convent of Santa Mari write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Church and Dominican Convent of Santa Mari comes up about 195 km into the recorded legs. Next is Crespi d'Adda.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Crespi d'Adda write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Crespi d'Adda closes the day.
Crespi d'Adda → Church and Dominican Convent of Santa Mari is 46 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Church and Dominican Convent of Santa Mari → The castrum with the Torba Tower and the c is 47 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
The castrum with the Torba Tower and the c → Il Sabbione o settentrionale is 28 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Il Sabbione o settentrionale → back through The castrum with the Torba Tower and the c is 28 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through The castrum with the Torba Tower and the c → back through Church and Dominican Convent of Santa Mari is 46 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Church and Dominican Convent of Santa Mari → Crespi d'Adda is 44 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.