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 320 km to Ossuccio; allow about 6 h 47 of riding. On the way it passes Monte San Giorgio, Isolino Virginia-Camilla-Isola di San Biag, Sacro Monte della SS.Trinità and back through Isolino Virginia-Camilla-Isola di San Biag. 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 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.
about 89 km into the recorded legs you reach Isolino Virginia-Camilla-Isola di San Biag. Next is Sacro Monte della SS.Trinità, 27 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, about halfway. Next is back through Isolino Virginia-Camilla-Isola di San Biag.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
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.
back through Isolino Virginia-Camilla-Isola di San Biag sits at 105 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 264 km into the recorded legs. 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.
Sacri Monti of Piedmont and Lombardy closes the day.
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 → Isolino Virginia-Camilla-Isola di San Biag is 33 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Isolino Virginia-Camilla-Isola di San Biag → Sacro Monte della SS.Trinità is 71 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Sacro Monte della SS.Trinità → back through Isolino Virginia-Camilla-Isola di San Biag is 72 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Isolino Virginia-Camilla-Isola di San Biag → back through Monte San Giorgio is 32 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.