Why this ride
230 km from Prevalle to Prevalle, about 4 h 33 of riding. It goes by way of Frassino, Villa Serego, Villa Pisani Ferri and back through Villa Serego. The line favours views over speed.
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.
230 km from Prevalle to Prevalle, about 4 h 33 of riding. It goes by way of Frassino, Villa Serego, Villa Pisani Ferri and back through Villa Serego. The line favours views over speed.
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For about 31 km this is Lake Garda Western Shore and Strada della Forra, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
Lucone is a small basin in the green hills of the Valtènesi, just west of Lake Garda, and it is one of the sites in the UNESCO listing of prehistoric pile dwellings around the Alps. Once there was a little lake here, and during the Bronze Age people built villages of wooden houses raised on piles along its shore. The lake later turned to marsh and peat, which preserved the timbers, pottery and organic remains in waterlogged conditions for thousands of years. What you see today is a gentle, wooded hollow among vineyards and fields, and you need some imagination; the finds are in the archaeological museum in nearby Gavardo.
Read the complete Lucone write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Lucone is where the day begins. Next is Frassino.
Just outside Peschiera del Garda, at the southern tip of the lake, the Sanctuary of the Madonna del Frassino stands among vineyards and fields. According to legend, in 1510 a farmer working in his vineyard was threatened by a snake, prayed to the Virgin and found a small statue of the Madonna in the branches of an ash tree, frassino in Italian. The snake disappeared, and the sanctuary was built on the spot. Today it is a Franciscan church and convent, with a cloister and a collection of votive offerings left by the grateful over the centuries.
Read the complete Frassino write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Frassino comes up about 31 km into the recorded legs. Next is Villa Serego.
Andrea Palladio built many villas around the Veneto, but the one at Santa Sofia di Pedemonte, in the Valpolicella just north-west of Verona, is the oddball of the family. Commissioned by Marcantonio Serego in the mid-sixteenth century and never finished, it has none of the smooth classical calm of the Rotonda. Instead its courtyard is lined with giant Ionic columns built up from rough, rusticated blocks of local stone, as if the building were half turning back into the hillside. Only part of the planned design was completed, and the effect is wonderfully strange.
Read the complete Villa Serego write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 63 km into the recorded legs you reach Villa Serego. Next is Villa Pisani Ferri.
Andrea Palladio was still a young architect, not long out of his training as a stonemason, when the Pisani brothers, members of a powerful Venetian family, asked him to design a country house at Bagnolo, near Lonigo, in the late 1530s or early 1540s. The result, now known as Villa Pisani Ferri, is one of his early villas, a solid, symmetrical house with a grand central hall and a facade facing the river, part of the UNESCO site of the City of Vicenza and the Palladian Villas of the Veneto. Visits depend on the owners' arrangements, so check ahead if you hope to go inside.
Read the complete Villa Pisani Ferri write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Villa Pisani Ferri, about halfway. Next is back through Villa Serego.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Villa Serego write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Villa Serego sits at 141 km, about halfway. Next is back through Frassino.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Frassino write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Frassino comes up about 201 km into the recorded legs. Next is Lucone.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Lucone write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Lucone closes the day.
Lucone → Frassino is 31 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Frassino → Villa Serego is 32 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Villa Serego → Villa Pisani Ferri is 57 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Villa Pisani Ferri → back through Villa Serego is 51 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Villa Serego → back through Frassino is 30 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Frassino → Lucone is 28 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.