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.
472 km from Pallanza-Intra-Suna to Pallanza-Intra-Suna, about 9 h 12 of riding. It goes by way of Mercurago, Monte San Giorgio, Chateau de Sasso Corbaro and 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. It suits an unhurried touring pace.
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For about 63 km this is Grand Tour of Switzerland, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
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 is where the day begins. Next is Mercurago.
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 comes up about 50 km into the recorded legs. 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.
about 100 km into the recorded legs you reach Monte San Giorgio. 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 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.
Sacri Monti of Piedmont and Lombardy sits at 162 km, about halfway. Next is back through Chateau de Sasso Corbaro.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Chateau de Sasso Corbaro write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Chateau de Sasso Corbaro comes up about 307 km into the recorded legs. 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.
about 370 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Monte San Giorgio. Next is back through 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.
back through Mercurago, late in the day. Next is Sacro Monte della SS.Trinità, 40 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.
The route ends here after 472 km.
Sacro Monte della SS.Trinità → Mercurago is 50 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Mercurago → Monte San Giorgio is 50 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Monte San Giorgio → Chateau de Sasso Corbaro is 63 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Chateau de Sasso Corbaro → Sacri Monti of Piedmont and Lombardy is 72 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Sacri Monti of Piedmont and Lombardy → back through Chateau de Sasso Corbaro is 72 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Chateau de Sasso Corbaro → back through Monte San Giorgio is 63 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Monte San Giorgio → back through Mercurago is 53 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Mercurago → Sacro Monte della SS.Trinità is 50 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.