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: planning record, not independently verified geometry.
Reading history stays on this device. My road watch requires a separate selection; opening it does not subscribe this ride.
Distances and riding times are planning figures. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
From Fiesch it runs 294 km to Fiesch; allow about 5 h 04 of riding. On the way it passes Sacro Monte Calvario, Sacro Monte della SS.Trinità, Sacro Monte del Rosario di Varese and Il Sabbione o settentrionale. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 2,350 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It crosses from Switzerland into Italy - 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 65 km this is Simplon Pass Road, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
No road comes anywhere near. This is a landscape of ice, rock and sky, the first Alpine area to be listed as a World Heritage site, and the riding is all around it rather than through it.
Read the complete Swiss Alps Jungfrau-Aletsch write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Swiss Alps Jungfrau-Aletsch is where the day begins. Next is Sacro Monte Calvario.
Domodossola's holy mountain rises immediately above the town, on the wooded Mattarella hill, and the walk or ride up gives you the whole Ossola valley at your feet. The Sacro Monte Calvario was begun in the seventeenth century as a devotional path of chapels depicting the Passion of Christ, each holding painted and sculpted scenes, leading up to a sanctuary church at the top. It is one of the nine Sacri Monti of Piedmont and Lombardy inscribed together on the UNESCO list, and it has a particular link with Antonio Rosmini, the philosopher-priest who founded his religious institute here in the nineteenth century.
Read the complete Sacro Monte Calvario write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Sacro Monte Calvario comes up about 65 km into the recorded legs. Next is Sacro Monte della SS.Trinità, 37 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.
about 105 km into the recorded legs you reach Sacro Monte della SS.Trinità. Next is Sacro Monte del Rosario di Varese.
Above Varese, on the flank of the Campo dei Fiori, a cobbled path climbs two kilometres or so through woods and past fourteen chapels to a medieval sanctuary and the tiny village of Santa Maria del Monte. Each chapel contains a life-size scene of the mysteries of the Rosary, with painted terracotta figures and frescoed backgrounds, and the whole ensemble, built in the seventeenth century under the architect Giuseppe Bernascone, is one of the nine Sacri Monti of Piedmont and Lombardy inscribed as a World Heritage Site in 2003.
Read the complete Sacro Monte del Rosario di Varese write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Sacro Monte del Rosario di Varese, about halfway. Next is Il Sabbione o settentrionale.
Lake Monate is small, round and remarkably clean, set in the gentle hills of the Varese province between Lake Maggiore and Lake Varese. It has no river flowing into it, being fed by springs, and its water is among the clearest of any lake in Lombardy, which makes it a favourite with swimmers on hot summer days. On its northern shore, near Cadrezzate, the site known as Il Sabbione preserves the remains of a prehistoric village built on piles at the water's edge, part of the UNESCO listing of prehistoric pile dwellings around the Alps. The Varese area is rich in such sites, and the finds from them, including pottery, tools and the remains of wooden canoes, are displayed in local museums.
Read the complete Il Sabbione o settentrionale write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Il Sabbione o settentrionale sits at 147 km, about halfway. Next is back through Sacro Monte del Rosario di Varese.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Sacro Monte del Rosario di Varese write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Sacro Monte del Rosario di Varese comes up about 165 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Sacro Monte della SS.Trinità, 37 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.
about 189 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Sacro Monte della SS.Trinità. Next is back through Sacro Monte Calvario.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Sacro Monte Calvario write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Sacro Monte Calvario, late in the day. Next is Swiss Alps Jungfrau-Aletsch.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Swiss Alps Jungfrau-Aletsch write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 294 km.
Swiss Alps Jungfrau-Aletsch → Sacro Monte Calvario is 65 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Sacro Monte Calvario → Sacro Monte della SS.Trinità is 40 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Sacro Monte della SS.Trinità → Sacro Monte del Rosario di Varese is 24 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Sacro Monte del Rosario di Varese → Il Sabbione o settentrionale is 18 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Il Sabbione o settentrionale → back through Sacro Monte del Rosario di Varese is 18 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Sacro Monte del Rosario di Varese → back through Sacro Monte della SS.Trinità is 24 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Sacro Monte della SS.Trinità → back through Sacro Monte Calvario is 40 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Sacro Monte Calvario → Swiss Alps Jungfrau-Aletsch is 65 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.