Why this ride
From Sirmione it runs 260 km to Sirmione; allow about 4 h 24 of riding. It goes by way of Villa Serego, Villa Pisani Ferri, Villa Almerico Capra and back through Villa Pisani Ferri. The line favours views over speed.
CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
Lugana Vecchia and Villa Almerico Capra
Plan this ride
- Recorded distance
- 260 km
- Riding-time estimate
- 4 h 24
- Journey
- Recorded itinerary
Distance and timing basis
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.
Scenic road chapters
Mille Miglia Historic Route Core
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For about 57 km this is Mille Miglia Historic Route Core, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
Chapter facts
- Length
- 57 km
- Named road
- Mille Miglia Historic Route Core
Waypoint introductions and full write-ups
1. Lugana Vecchia
Lake Garda's southern shore is a landscape made by ice. At the end of the last glaciation a huge tongue of ice pushed out of the Alps and left behind a ring of moraine hills, curved like an amphitheatre, with the lake in the middle and the Po plain beyond. The shallow bay near Sirmione, where the lake meets the low land, was settled very early, and Lugana Vecchia is one of the prehistoric pile-dwelling sites around the Alps that UNESCO has grouped together as a World Heritage Site. Villages of timber houses on stilts stood in the shallows or on the shore here in the Bronze Age, and the wet ground preserved wood, textiles and tools that would have rotted elsewhere.
Read the complete Lugana Vecchia write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Lugana Vecchia is where the day begins. Next is Villa Serego.
2. 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.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Villa Serego comes up about 40 km into the recorded legs. Next is Villa Pisani Ferri.
3. 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.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
about 97 km into the recorded legs you reach Villa Pisani Ferri. Next is Villa Almerico Capra.
4. Villa Almerico Capra
The Villa Almerico Capra, known as La Rotonda, stands on a small hill above Vicenza, and it is one of the most copied buildings in the history of architecture. Andrea Palladio began it in the 1560s for a retired papal official, Paolo Almerico, who wanted a place for entertaining and for looking at the view rather than for farming. The plan is a perfect square, with a round hall under a dome at the centre, and each of the four sides has an identical portico with Ionic columns and a flight of steps, so that the house presents the same face to every direction. The idea was that the building should be an ornament to the landscape, and the landscape an ornament to the house.
Read the complete Villa Almerico Capra write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Villa Almerico Capra, about halfway. Next is back through Villa Pisani Ferri.
5. back through Villa Pisani Ferri
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Villa Pisani Ferri write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
back through Villa Pisani Ferri sits at 157 km, about halfway. Next is back through Villa Serego.
6. back through Villa Serego
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Villa Serego write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
back through Villa Serego comes up about 218 km into the recorded legs. Next is Lugana Vecchia.
7. Lugana Vecchia
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Lugana Vecchia write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Lugana Vecchia closes the day.
Leg by leg
Lugana Vecchia to Villa Serego
Lugana Vecchia → Villa Serego is 40 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Villa Serego to Villa Pisani Ferri
Villa Serego → Villa Pisani Ferri is 57 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Villa Pisani Ferri to Villa Almerico Capra
Villa Pisani Ferri → Villa Almerico Capra is 35 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Villa Almerico Capra to back through Villa Pisani Ferri
Villa Almerico Capra → back through Villa Pisani Ferri is 35 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Villa Pisani Ferri to back through Villa Serego
back through 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 to Lugana Vecchia
back through Villa Serego → Lugana Vecchia is 41 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.