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 Ossuccio it runs 298 km to Ossuccio; allow about 8 h 08 of riding. It goes by way of Monte San Giorgio, Bodio centrale o delle Monete, Isolino Virginia-Camilla-Isola di San Biag and back through Monte San Giorgio. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,100 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It crosses from Italy into Switzerland - carry ID and check vignette or toll rules.
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For about 56 km this is Grand Tour of Switzerland, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
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.
Sacri Monti of Piedmont and Lombardy is where the day begins. Next is Monte San Giorgio.
Monte San Giorgio is a wooded, pyramid-shaped mountain on the shores of Lake Lugano, straddling the border between Switzerland and Italy. To the eye, it is a pleasant green hill with villages on its slopes. To palaeontologists, it is one of the most important fossil sites in the world. About two hundred and forty million years ago, during the Middle Triassic, this area was a tropical lagoon, and its sediments preserved an extraordinary range of marine reptiles, fish, invertebrates and plants. The mountain was added to the UNESCO list in 2003 on the Swiss side, and in 2010 on the Italian side.
Read the complete Monte San Giorgio write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Monte San Giorgio comes up about 56 km into the recorded legs. Next is Bodio centrale o delle Monete.
Gavirate, on the northern shore of the Lago di Varese in Lombardy, has a sweet claim to fame: it is the home of the brutti ma buoni, ugly but good, crunchy biscuits made with hazelnuts and egg whites, which were reportedly invented here in the nineteenth century and are still sold in local pastry shops. The lake itself is a small, shallow lake surrounded by low hills, and its shores were home to some of the earliest pile-dwelling villages in Italy. The site of Bodio Centrale, also known as delle Monete, on the southern shore near Bodio Lomnago, is part of the Prehistoric Pile Dwellings around the Alps, listed by UNESCO in 2011.
Read the complete Bodio centrale o delle Monete write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 83 km into the recorded legs you reach Bodio centrale o delle Monete.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Monte San Giorgio write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Monte San Giorgio, about halfway. Next is Isolino Virginia-Camilla-Isola di San Biag.
Lago di Varese is the quiet one. The big lakes, Maggiore and Lugano, grab the postcards and the coach tours, while this shallow, reedy sheet of water just west of Varese gets on with being pretty in a modest way. Off its western shore, a few hundred metres out from Biandronno, floats a tiny wooded island called Isolino Virginia, and that speck of land is one of the most important prehistoric sites in the Alpine world.
Read the complete Isolino Virginia-Camilla-Isola di San Biag write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Isolino Virginia-Camilla-Isola di San Biag sits at 97 km, about halfway. Next is back through Monte San Giorgio.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Monte San Giorgio write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Monte San Giorgio comes up about 184 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Bodio centrale o delle Monete.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Bodio centrale o delle Monete write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 217 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Bodio centrale o delle Monete.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Monte San Giorgio write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Monte San Giorgio, late in the day. Next is 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.
The route ends here after 298 km.
Sacri Monti of Piedmont and Lombardy → Monte San Giorgio is 56 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Monte San Giorgio → Bodio centrale o delle Monete is 27 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Bodio centrale o delle Monete → Monte San Giorgio is 28 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Monte San Giorgio → Isolino Virginia-Camilla-Isola di San Biag is 39 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Isolino Virginia-Camilla-Isola di San Biag → back through Monte San Giorgio is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Monte San Giorgio → back through Bodio centrale o delle Monete is 33 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Bodio centrale o delle Monete → back through Monte San Giorgio is 25 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Monte San Giorgio → Sacri Monti of Piedmont and Lombardy is 57 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.