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.
504 km from Orta San Giulio to Orta San Giulio, about 8 h 52 of riding. The stops in between: Bodio centrale o delle Monete, Sacri Monti of Piedmont and Lombardy, Chateau de Sasso Corbaro and Sacro Monte della Beata Vergine del Soccor. 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. A steady touring day rather than a sprint.
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For about 62 km this is Grand Tour of Switzerland, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
Lake Orta is the quiet sister of Lake Maggiore, smaller, calmer and more mysterious, and on a wooded hill above its prettiest town stands a holy mountain dedicated to Saint Francis of Assisi. The Sacro Monte di Orta is a path through a park of beech and chestnut trees, linking twenty chapels built from the end of the sixteenth century onward, each containing life-size terracotta statues and frescoes depicting scenes from the life of the saint. It is one of the nine holy mountains of Piedmont and Lombardy listed together by UNESCO in 2003, created during the Counter-Reformation as places of pilgrimage and devotion.
Read the complete Sacro Monte di San Francesco d’Orta San Gi write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Sacro Monte di San Francesco d’Orta San Gi is where the day begins. 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.
Bodio centrale o delle Monete comes up about 46 km into the recorded legs. 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.
about 108 km into the recorded legs you reach Sacri Monti of Piedmont and Lombardy. 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 Sacro Monte della Beata Vergine del Soccor.
The Madonna of Succour sits above Ossuccio, on the western shore of Lake Como, about halfway between Como and Menaggio. A cobbled path climbs through the village with fourteen small chapels along it, each holding painted terracotta figures that act out a scene from the life of Mary, and at the top there is a sanctuary with a terrace and a view across the water. It is one of the Sacri Monti of Piedmont and Lombardy, a group of hillside devotional complexes that UNESCO listed together in 2003. These were built in the Counter-Reformation as walkable theology: you could not read, so you walked and looked. The Ossuccio chapels date from the seventeenth century, and the little island you see below the slope is the Isola Comacina, the only island on the lake, with its own long and rather stormy history.
Read the complete Sacro Monte della Beata Vergine del Soccor write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Sacro Monte della Beata Vergine del Soccor sits at 158 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 324 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through 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.
about 396 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Sacri Monti of Piedmont and Lombardy. 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.
back through Bodio centrale o delle Monete, late in the day. Next is Sacro Monte di San Francesco d’Orta San Gi.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Sacro Monte di San Francesco d’Orta San Gi write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 504 km.
Sacro Monte di San Francesco d’Orta San Gi → Bodio centrale o delle Monete is 46 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Bodio centrale o delle Monete → Sacri Monti of Piedmont and Lombardy is 62 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Sacri Monti of Piedmont and Lombardy → Chateau de Sasso Corbaro is 72 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Chateau de Sasso Corbaro → Sacro Monte della Beata Vergine del Soccor is 72 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Sacro Monte della Beata Vergine del Soccor → 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 Sacri Monti of Piedmont and Lombardy is 72 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Sacri Monti of Piedmont and Lombardy → back through Bodio centrale o delle Monete is 63 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Bodio centrale o delle Monete → Sacro Monte di San Francesco d’Orta San Gi is 45 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.