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 411 km round trip from Grinzane Cavour - roughly 7 h 55 in the saddle. On the way it passes Castello di Racconigi, Palazzina di Caccia di Stupinigi, Sacro Monte di Belmonte and Sacro Monte della Beata Vergine. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,750 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Speed drops and stays down. Park rather than crawl through. 38 km through ground somebody thought worth listing. The road passes it rather than bypassing it.
Count Camillo Benso di Cavour, the man who more or less engineered the unification of Italy, spent years as mayor of this little Langhe village before he went on to bigger things, and the square brick castle on its knoll still carries his name. He experimented with winemaking here too, at a time when Barolo was still finding its modern form, so the building sits at a neat crossroads of Piedmontese politics and Piedmontese wine.
Read the complete Grinzane Cavour Castle write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Grinzane Cavour Castle is where the day begins. Next is Castello di Racconigi.
Racconigi is a small town on the plain south of Turin, in Piedmont, surrounded by fields of maize and rice and lines of poplars. It is dominated by its castle, a grand residence of the House of Savoy, which ruled Piedmont and later Italy. Originally a medieval fortress, it was transformed over the centuries into a palace, with Baroque and neoclassical façades, and surrounded by a vast park with lakes, woods and a farm. The castle is part of the UNESCO-listed Residences of the Royal House of Savoy, inscribed in 1997.
Read the complete Castello di Racconigi write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Castello di Racconigi comes up about 46 km into the recorded legs. Next is Palazzina di Caccia di Stupinigi.
On the southern edge of Turin, at the end of a long straight avenue lined with trees, a bronze stag stands on the dome of a palace that looks like a star dropped on the plain. The Palazzina di Caccia di Stupinigi was built from 1729 by the architect Filippo Juvarra for King Vittorio Amedeo II of Savoy as a hunting lodge, though the word lodge hardly does justice to its grand halls, frescoed ceilings and sprawling wings. It is part of the World Heritage Site of the Residences of the Royal House of Savoy, inscribed in 1997.
Read the complete Palazzina di Caccia di Stupinigi write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 78 km into the recorded legs you reach Palazzina di Caccia di Stupinigi. Next is 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.
Read the complete Sacro Monte di Belmonte write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Sacro Monte di Belmonte, about halfway. Next is 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.
Read the complete Sacro Monte della Beata Vergine write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Sacro Monte della Beata Vergine sits at 183 km, about halfway. Next is back through Sacro Monte di Belmonte.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Sacro Monte di Belmonte write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Sacro Monte di Belmonte comes up about 274 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Palazzina di Caccia di Stupinigi.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Palazzina di Caccia di Stupinigi write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 333 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Palazzina di Caccia di Stupinigi. Next is back through Castello di Racconigi.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Castello di Racconigi write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Castello di Racconigi, late in the day. Next is Grinzane Cavour Castle.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Grinzane Cavour Castle write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 411 km.
Grinzane Cavour Castle → Castello di Racconigi is 46 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Castello di Racconigi → Palazzina di Caccia di Stupinigi is 32 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Palazzina di Caccia di Stupinigi → Sacro Monte di Belmonte is 64 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Sacro Monte di Belmonte → Sacro Monte della Beata Vergine is 66 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Sacro Monte della Beata Vergine → back through Sacro Monte di Belmonte is 66 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Sacro Monte di Belmonte → back through Palazzina di Caccia di Stupinigi is 59 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Palazzina di Caccia di Stupinigi → back through Castello di Racconigi is 32 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Castello di Racconigi → Grinzane Cavour Castle is 45 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.