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.
A 461 km round trip from Nova Levante - roughly 9 h 29 in the saddle. The stops in between: Pale di San Martino San Lucano - Dolomiti, Le Colline del Prosecco di Conegliano e Va, Villa Emo and Scrovegni Chapel Church of the Eremitani. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,800 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. The line favours views over speed.
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For about 72 km this is Great Dolomites Road, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
Check the pass is open before you commit to it.
Watch the Rosengarten at sunset from the valley of Bolzano and you will understand the legend. As the sun goes down, the pale dolomite peaks glow pink, then red, then purple, a phenomenon the Ladin people call enrosadira. According to the old story, King Laurin of the dwarves had a magnificent rose garden here, and when he was captured by enemies who had spotted his roses, he cursed the garden so that no one would see it by day or by night. He forgot the twilight, and so, for a few minutes each evening, the roses bloom again on the rocks. Together with the Sciliar, or Schlern, the great flat-topped massif to the north, the Catinaccio forms one of the components of the Dolomites UNESCO World Heritage site, listed in 2009.
Read the complete Sciliar-Catinaccio write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Sciliar-Catinaccio is where the day begins. Next is Pale di San Martino San Lucano - Dolomiti.
The Val di San Lucano is a deep, shadowed gash in the southern Dolomites, and the point here lies near Rivamonte and Voltago, in the Agordino, the upper valley of the Cordevole river. The big, pale walls on either side belong to the Pale di San Martino group, one of the nine sets of mountains included in the Dolomites World Heritage listing of 2009, and their sheer rock faces rise more than a thousand metres above the narrow valley floor.
Read the complete Pale di San Martino San Lucano - Dolomiti write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Pale di San Martino San Lucano - Dolomiti comes up about 72 km into the recorded legs. Next is Le Colline del Prosecco di Conegliano e Va.
These are not soft, rolling wine hills. Between Conegliano and Valdobbiadene, the foothills of the Pre-Alps rise in steep hogback ridges, sharp crests of rock running east to west, with vines clinging to slopes so steep that much of the work is still done by hand. Grass-covered terraces called ciglioni hold the soil in place, and the result is a patchwork of vines, woods and small villages that UNESCO listed in 2019.
Read the complete Le Colline del Prosecco di Conegliano e Va write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 140 km into the recorded legs you reach Le Colline del Prosecco di Conegliano e Va. Next is Villa Emo.
Andrea Palladio built villas for the Venetian nobility as working farms, not just as country houses, and Villa Emo at Fanzolo is perhaps the purest example of that idea. Completed around 1560 for the Emo family, it stands at the centre of a flat, fertile estate, with a long, symmetrical central block flanked by two arcaded wings, the barchesse, which housed the farm buildings, storage and dovecotes. The ramp leading up to the front door was used for threshing grain. Inside, the rooms are decorated with frescoes by Giovanni Battista Zelotti, mythological and allegorical scenes that bring colour and life to the classical architecture. The villa is part of the UNESCO listing of Vicenza and the Palladian Villas of the Veneto.
Read the complete Villa Emo write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Villa Emo, about halfway. Next is Scrovegni Chapel Church of the Eremitani.
Giotto painted the Scrovegni Chapel in about two years, between 1303 and 1305, and it changed how Europeans drew people. Before him faces were icons; here they are tired, tender, furious, ashamed. The chapel was commissioned by Enrico Scrovegni, whose father Reginaldo was a moneylender so notorious that Dante put him in hell. Enrico built the chapel beside the family palace, so the story goes, to ease his father's soul, and the result is a small brick box covered inside with a blue ceiling of gold stars and thirty-odd scenes from the lives of Mary and Christ, ending with a vast Last Judgment on the west wall.
Read the complete Scrovegni Chapel Church of the Eremitani write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Scrovegni Chapel Church of the Eremitani sits at 192 km, about halfway. Next is back through Villa Emo.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Villa Emo write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Villa Emo comes up about 276 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Le Colline del Prosecco di Conegliano e Va.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Le Colline del Prosecco di Conegliano e Va write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 322 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Le Colline del Prosecco di Conegliano e Va. Next is back through Pale di San Martino San Lucano - Dolomiti.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Pale di San Martino San Lucano - Dolomiti write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Pale di San Martino San Lucano - Dolomiti, late in the day. Next is Sciliar-Catinaccio.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Sciliar-Catinaccio write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 461 km.
Sciliar-Catinaccio → Pale di San Martino San Lucano - Dolomiti is 72 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Pale di San Martino San Lucano - Dolomiti → Le Colline del Prosecco di Conegliano e Va is 68 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Le Colline del Prosecco di Conegliano e Va → Villa Emo is 47 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Villa Emo → Scrovegni Chapel Church of the Eremitani is 43 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Scrovegni Chapel Church of the Eremitani → back through Villa Emo is 46 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Villa Emo → back through Le Colline del Prosecco di Conegliano e Va is 46 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Le Colline del Prosecco di Conegliano e Va → back through Pale di San Martino San Lucano - Dolomiti is 68 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Pale di San Martino San Lucano - Dolomiti → Sciliar-Catinaccio is 72 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.