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.
465 km from Cadrezzate to Cadrezzate, about 8 h 20 of riding. The stops in between: Sacro Monte o “Nuova Gerusalemme” di Varal, Sacro Monte della Beata Vergine, Castello di Agliè and Borgo castello nel parco della Mandria. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,750 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. A steady touring day rather than a sprint.
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 is where the day begins. Next is Sacro Monte o “Nuova Gerusalemme” di Varal.
Varallo is a small town at the point where the Valsesia stops being a wide valley and starts becoming a mountain one, and above it, on a rocky spur reached by a winding road or a short cable car, is the oldest and most ambitious of the Sacri Monti. In 1491 a Franciscan friar called Bernardino Caimi, back from the Holy Land, set out to recreate Jerusalem here for pilgrims who could never make the journey. The result is a hilltop village of more than forty chapels filled with life-size painted terracotta and wooden figures, hundreds of them, telling the life of Christ like a frozen theatre. Gaudenzio Ferrari, the great Renaissance painter of this valley, worked on many of them.
Read the complete Sacro Monte o “Nuova Gerusalemme” di Varal write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Sacro Monte o “Nuova Gerusalemme” di Varal comes up about 73 km into the recorded legs. 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.
about 134 km into the recorded legs you reach Sacro Monte della Beata Vergine. Next is Castello di Agliè.
Agliè is a small town in the Canavese, the hilly district north of Turin that spreads between the Po plain and the mouths of the Alpine valleys, and its castle is far grander than the town around it. Begun as a medieval fortress by the San Martino counts, it was transformed in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries into a baroque residence and later bought by the House of Savoy, who turned it into a summer palace with richly decorated rooms, a chapel, a theatre and a large park with fountains and a lake. It is part of the UNESCO listing of the Residences of the Royal House of Savoy, a ring of palaces around Turin, and Italian television viewers may recognise it from a popular costume drama filmed there.
Read the complete Castello di Agliè write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Castello di Agliè, about halfway. Next is Borgo castello nel parco della Mandria.
The Parco La Mandria, north-west of Turin, is the largest remnant of the royal hunting estates of the House of Savoy, and the Borgo Castello at its centre was once the heart of the estate. The word mandria means a herd, and the park began as a stud and breeding farm for horses and cattle on the plain, with the woods kept for the hunt. Today the park is a protected area of about three thousand hectares, surrounded by a wall, where visitors walk or cycle between oaks, hornbeams and meadows, and where deer and wild boar still live.
Read the complete Borgo castello nel parco della Mandria write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Borgo castello nel parco della Mandria sits at 165 km, about halfway. Next is back through Castello di Agliè.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Castello di Agliè write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Castello di Agliè comes up about 274 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Sacro Monte della Beata Vergine.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Sacro Monte della Beata Vergine write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 329 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Sacro Monte della Beata Vergine. Next is back through Sacro Monte o “Nuova Gerusalemme” di Varal.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Sacro Monte o “Nuova Gerusalemme” di Varal write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Sacro Monte o “Nuova Gerusalemme” di Varal, late in the day. Next is Il Sabbione o settentrionale.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Il Sabbione o settentrionale write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 465 km.
Il Sabbione o settentrionale → Sacro Monte o “Nuova Gerusalemme” di Varal is 73 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Sacro Monte o “Nuova Gerusalemme” di Varal → Sacro Monte della Beata Vergine is 61 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Sacro Monte della Beata Vergine → Castello di Agliè is 56 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Castello di Agliè → Borgo castello nel parco della Mandria is 42 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Borgo castello nel parco della Mandria → back through Castello di Agliè is 42 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Castello di Agliè → back through Sacro Monte della Beata Vergine is 55 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Sacro Monte della Beata Vergine → back through Sacro Monte o “Nuova Gerusalemme” di Varal is 61 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Sacro Monte o “Nuova Gerusalemme” di Varal → Il Sabbione o settentrionale is 75 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.