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 Arona it runs 343 km to Arona; allow about 6 h 54 of riding. It goes by way of Sacro Monte del Rosario di Varese, Sacri Monti of Piedmont and Lombardy, Chateau de Sasso Corbaro and back through Sacri Monti of Piedmont and Lombardy. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,500 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It crosses from Italy into Switzerland - carry ID and check vignette or toll rules. The line favours views over speed.
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For about 58 km this is Grand Tour of Switzerland, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
Just south of Arona, at the southern tip of Lago Maggiore, a small regional park protects a landscape of woods, meadows and peat bogs called the Lagoni di Mercurago. The lagoni are small ponds and wetlands formed after the retreat of the glaciers, and in the nineteenth century, while peat was being dug, the remains of a Bronze Age pile dwelling settlement were found here, including a wooden wheel. Mercurago is part of the UNESCO site of prehistoric pile dwellings around the Alps.
Read the complete Mercurago write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Mercurago is where the day begins. Next is Sacro Monte del Rosario di Varese.
Above Varese, on the flank of the Campo dei Fiori, a cobbled path climbs two kilometres or so through woods and past fourteen chapels to a medieval sanctuary and the tiny village of Santa Maria del Monte. Each chapel contains a life-size scene of the mysteries of the Rosary, with painted terracotta figures and frescoed backgrounds, and the whole ensemble, built in the seventeenth century under the architect Giuseppe Bernascone, is one of the nine Sacri Monti of Piedmont and Lombardy inscribed as a World Heritage Site in 2003.
Read the complete Sacro Monte del Rosario di Varese write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Sacro Monte del Rosario di Varese comes up about 40 km into the recorded legs. 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.
about 98 km into the recorded legs you reach Sacri Monti of Piedmont and Lombardy. Next is Chateau de Sasso Corbaro.
Bellinzona sits at the point where the valleys of the southern Alps converge before opening towards Lake Maggiore and Italy, and whoever held it controlled the routes over the Gotthard, the Lukmanier and the San Bernardino passes. In the fifteenth century the Dukes of Milan built a formidable system of defences here: three castles and a wall that ran across the whole valley floor. Castelgrande, on a rocky hill above the old town, Montebello, on the slope above it, and Sasso Corbaro, highest of all on a wooded spur, together form a World Heritage site. Sasso Corbaro was built in 1479, in a matter of months, after the Swiss Confederates defeated the Milanese at the Battle of Giornico, a short way up the Leventina valley, and the Duke wanted to plug the gap in his defences.
Read the complete Chateau de Sasso Corbaro write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Chateau de Sasso Corbaro, about halfway. Next is back through Sacri Monti of Piedmont and Lombardy.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Sacri Monti of Piedmont and Lombardy write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Sacri Monti of Piedmont and Lombardy sits at 146 km, about halfway. Next is back through Sacro Monte del Rosario di Varese.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Sacro Monte del Rosario di Varese write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Sacro Monte del Rosario di Varese comes up about 301 km into the recorded legs. Next is Mercurago.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Mercurago write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Mercurago closes the day.
Mercurago → Sacro Monte del Rosario di Varese is 40 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Sacro Monte del Rosario di Varese → Sacri Monti of Piedmont and Lombardy is 58 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Sacri Monti of Piedmont and Lombardy → Chateau de Sasso Corbaro is 72 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Chateau de Sasso Corbaro → back through Sacri Monti of Piedmont and Lombardy is 72 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Sacri Monti of Piedmont and Lombardy → back through Sacro Monte del Rosario di Varese is 59 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Sacro Monte del Rosario di Varese → Mercurago is 43 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.