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 Cadrezzate it runs 223 km to Cadrezzate; allow about 6 h 15 of riding. The stops in between: The castrum with the Torba Tower and the c, Monte San Giorgio, Sacri Monti of Piedmont and Lombardy and back through Monte San Giorgio. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,100 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It crosses from Italy into Switzerland - carry ID and check vignette or toll rules.
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For about 53 km this is Grand Tour of Switzerland, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
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 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.
The castrum with the Torba Tower and the c comes up about 28 km into the recorded legs. Next is Monte San Giorgio.
Monte San Giorgio is a wooded, pyramid-shaped mountain on the shores of Lake Lugano, straddling the border between Switzerland and Italy. To the eye, it is a pleasant green hill with villages on its slopes. To palaeontologists, it is one of the most important fossil sites in the world. About two hundred and forty million years ago, during the Middle Triassic, this area was a tropical lagoon, and its sediments preserved an extraordinary range of marine reptiles, fish, invertebrates and plants. The mountain was added to the UNESCO list in 2003 on the Swiss side, and in 2010 on the Italian side.
Read the complete Monte San Giorgio write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 58 km into the recorded legs you reach Monte San Giorgio. Next is Sacri Monti of Piedmont and Lombardy.
On the western shore of Lake Como, above the village of Ossuccio and facing the little Isola Comacina, a cobbled path climbs the hillside through olive groves and woods, past fourteen small chapels, to a sanctuary at the top. This is the Sacro Monte of Ossuccio, one of nine sacred mountains in Piedmont and Lombardy listed together by UNESCO. Built in the seventeenth century, the chapels illustrate the Mysteries of the Rosary with life-size terracotta and plaster figures arranged in dramatic scenes, each one a small piece of theatre.
Read the complete Sacri Monti of Piedmont and Lombardy write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Sacri Monti of Piedmont and Lombardy, about halfway. Next is back through Monte San Giorgio.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Monte San Giorgio write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Monte San Giorgio sits at 105 km, 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 comes up about 194 km into the recorded legs. 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.
Il Sabbione o settentrionale closes the day.
Il Sabbione o settentrionale → 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.
The castrum with the Torba Tower and the c → Monte San Giorgio is 30 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Monte San Giorgio → Sacri Monti of Piedmont and Lombardy is 53 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Sacri Monti of Piedmont and Lombardy → back through Monte San Giorgio is 53 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Monte San Giorgio → back through The castrum with the Torba Tower and the c is 30 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 → Il Sabbione o settentrionale is 28 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.