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.
259 km from Turin to Turin, about 4 h 28 of riding. It goes by way of Ivrea, Sacro Monte o “Nuova Gerusalemme” di Varal and back through Ivrea. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,600 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Turin was Italy's first capital, and the Palazzo Madama in the middle of Piazza Castello was its first parliament. When the kingdom was proclaimed in 1861, the Senate met in a room inside this strange building, a medieval castle with a baroque facade added in the early eighteenth century by the architect Filippo Juvarra. The name comes from the royal widows, the Madama Reali, who lived here in the seventeenth century, among them Christine of France. Today it houses the city's museum of ancient art, and the staircase and facade are among the most beautiful in Italy. The whole ensemble of Savoy residences in and around Turin is listed by UNESCO.
Read the complete Palazzo Madama write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Palazzo Madama is where the day begins. Next is Ivrea.
Ivrea is the town Olivetti built, or at least rebuilt. In the twentieth century the Olivetti company, famous for typewriters, calculators and some of the first personal computers, turned this small Piedmontese town into a showcase of what industry could be: factories with glass walls and natural light, worker housing, libraries, nurseries and social services designed by the best architects of the day. Adriano Olivetti believed a company should serve its community, and the result was listed by UNESCO in 2018 as an industrial city of the twentieth century. Walk along Corso Jervis and you can see the buildings still standing, some reused, some waiting.
Read the complete Ivrea write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Ivrea comes up about 61 km into the recorded legs. Next is Sacro Monte o “Nuova Gerusalemme” di Varal.
Varallo is a small town at the point where the Valsesia stops being a wide valley and starts becoming a mountain one, and above it, on a rocky spur reached by a winding road or a short cable car, is the oldest and most ambitious of the Sacri Monti. In 1491 a Franciscan friar called Bernardino Caimi, back from the Holy Land, set out to recreate Jerusalem here for pilgrims who could never make the journey. The result is a hilltop village of more than forty chapels filled with life-size painted terracotta and wooden figures, hundreds of them, telling the life of Christ like a frozen theatre. Gaudenzio Ferrari, the great Renaissance painter of this valley, worked on many of them.
Read the complete Sacro Monte o “Nuova Gerusalemme” di Varal write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 129 km into the recorded legs you reach Sacro Monte o “Nuova Gerusalemme” di Varal. Next is back through Ivrea.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Ivrea write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Ivrea, late in the day. Next is Palazzo Madama.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Palazzo Madama write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Palazzo Madama. That is the ride.
Palazzo Madama → Ivrea is 61 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Ivrea → Sacro Monte o “Nuova Gerusalemme” di Varal is 68 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Sacro Monte o “Nuova Gerusalemme” di Varal → back through Ivrea is 68 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Ivrea → Palazzo Madama is 61 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.