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 Gavirate it runs 316 km to Gavirate; allow about 5 h 48 of riding. It goes by way of Sacro Monte della SS.Trinità, Sacro Monte di San Francesco d’Orta San Gi, Sacro Monte Calvario and back through Sacro Monte di San Francesco d’Orta San Gi. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,850 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
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 is where the day begins. Next is Sacro Monte della SS.Trinità, 35 km on.
High above the western shore of Lake Maggiore, in a forest of chestnut and beech above the village of Ghiffa, a small sanctuary dedicated to the Holy Trinity looks out over the water to the hills of Lombardy. The Sacro Monte of Ghiffa began in the seventeenth century as a series of chapels along a path, each meant to illustrate a scene from sacred history for pilgrims, but it was never completed as planned. It is the smallest of the nine Sacri Monti of Piedmont and Lombardy listed by UNESCO in 2003, and its charm lies in its intimacy and its setting: a few chapels, a porticoed walkway and a church in the woods, with the lake shining below.
Read the complete Sacro Monte della SS.Trinità write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Sacro Monte della SS.Trinità comes up about 71 km into the recorded legs. Next is Sacro Monte di San Francesco d’Orta San Gi.
Lake Orta is the quiet sister of Lake Maggiore, smaller, calmer and more mysterious, and on a wooded hill above its prettiest town stands a holy mountain dedicated to Saint Francis of Assisi. The Sacro Monte di Orta is a path through a park of beech and chestnut trees, linking twenty chapels built from the end of the sixteenth century onward, each containing life-size terracotta statues and frescoes depicting scenes from the life of the saint. It is one of the nine holy mountains of Piedmont and Lombardy listed together by UNESCO in 2003, created during the Counter-Reformation as places of pilgrimage and devotion.
Read the complete Sacro Monte di San Francesco d’Orta San Gi write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 107 km into the recorded legs you reach Sacro Monte di San Francesco d’Orta San Gi. 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.
Sacro Monte Calvario, about halfway. Next is back through Sacro Monte di San Francesco d’Orta San Gi.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Sacro Monte di San Francesco d’Orta San Gi write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Sacro Monte di San Francesco d’Orta San Gi sits at 141 km, about halfway. Next is back through Sacro Monte della SS.Trinità, 36 km on.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Sacro Monte della SS.Trinità write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Sacro Monte della SS.Trinità comes up about 244 km into the recorded legs. Next is 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.
Isolino Virginia-Camilla-Isola di San Biag closes the day.
Isolino Virginia-Camilla-Isola di San Biag → Sacro Monte della SS.Trinità is 71 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Sacro Monte della SS.Trinità → Sacro Monte di San Francesco d’Orta San Gi is 36 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Sacro Monte di San Francesco d’Orta San Gi → Sacro Monte Calvario is 50 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Sacro Monte Calvario → back through Sacro Monte di San Francesco d’Orta San Gi is 51 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Sacro Monte di San Francesco d’Orta San Gi → back through Sacro Monte della SS.Trinità is 36 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Sacro Monte della SS.Trinità → Isolino Virginia-Camilla-Isola di San Biag is 72 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.