CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
The recorded total and the leg detail need reconciliation. Inspect the leg notes before using this record for timing or navigation. 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 539 km to Arona; allow about 10 h 23 of riding. The stops in between: Sacro Monte della SS.Trinità, Sacro Monte Calvario, Valli di Lodano and Swiss Alps Jungfrau-Aletsch. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 2,350 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 44 km this is Ticino Lakes and Valleys Route, 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 della SS.Trinità, 48 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 48 km in. 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.
97 km in you reach Sacro Monte Calvario. Next is Valli di Lodano.
Halfway up the Maggia valley in Ticino, a narrow side valley climbs steeply west from the village of Lodano into a forest that has been left almost untouched for decades. The Valli di Lodano, together with the neighbouring valleys of Busai and Soladino, form a forest reserve in which beech trees grow from the valley floor up to the tree line, and in 2021 they were added to the World Heritage site of the Ancient and Primeval Beech Forests of Europe, a series of forests spread across eighteen countries. Walking up into the reserve, you pass through old chestnut groves, then into the beech forest, with moss-covered boulders, streams and the sound of falling water everywhere.
Read the complete Valli di Lodano write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Valli di Lodano, about halfway. Next is Swiss Alps Jungfrau-Aletsch.
No road comes anywhere near. This is a landscape of ice, rock and sky, the first Alpine area to be listed as a World Heritage site, and the riding is all around it rather than through it.
Read the complete Swiss Alps Jungfrau-Aletsch write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Swiss Alps Jungfrau-Aletsch sits at 193 km, about halfway. Next is back through Valli di Lodano.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Valli di Lodano write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Valli di Lodano comes up 241 km in. Next is back through Sacro Monte Calvario.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Sacro Monte Calvario write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
290 km in you reach back through Sacro Monte Calvario. Next is back through Sacro Monte della SS.Trinità, 48 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, late in the day. 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.
The route ends here after 539 km.
Mercurago → Sacro Monte della SS.Trinità is 35 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Sacro Monte della SS.Trinità → Sacro Monte Calvario is 40 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Sacro Monte Calvario → Valli di Lodano is 44 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Valli di Lodano → Swiss Alps Jungfrau-Aletsch is 74 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Swiss Alps Jungfrau-Aletsch → back through Valli di Lodano is 74 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Valli di Lodano → back through Sacro Monte Calvario is 44 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Sacro Monte Calvario → back through Sacro Monte della SS.Trinità is 40 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Sacro Monte della SS.Trinità → Mercurago is 35 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.