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 178 km round trip from Bassano del Grappa - roughly 3 h 53 in the saddle. The stops in between: Villa Godi Malinverni, Villa Caldogno, Villa Piovene and Villa Valmarana Bressan. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 950 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available.
Bassano del Grappa sits where the river Brenta leaves the mountains and spreads onto the Venetian plain, and its symbol is a covered wooden bridge, the Ponte Vecchio, designed by Palladio in the sixteenth century and rebuilt several times since after floods and wars. On the right bank of the river, just outside the town, stands Villa Angarano, a country house whose two long colonnaded wings were designed by Palladio, while the central residence was built later, in a different style, by the Venetian architect Baldassare Longhena. The villa is still a working wine estate and belongs to the UNESCO site of the City of Vicenza and the Palladian Villas of the Veneto.
Read the complete Villa Angarano write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Villa Angarano is where the day begins. Next is Villa Godi Malinverni.
Every great architect has to start somewhere, and Andrea Palladio started here. Villa Godi, built for the Godi brothers in the late 1530s and early 1540s at Lugo di Vicenza, is considered his first villa, and you can already see the ideas that would make him famous: a clear, symmetrical plan, a central hall flanked by rooms in harmonious proportion, and a building set carefully into the landscape, here on a terrace looking out over the plain. It is still a little stern compared with his later villas, but the frescoes inside, by painters such as Giovanni Battista Zelotti, are lively and colourful. It is part of the UNESCO listing of the City of Vicenza and the Palladian Villas of the Veneto.
Read the complete Villa Godi Malinverni write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Villa Godi Malinverni comes up about 29 km into the recorded legs. Next is Villa Caldogno.
Villa Caldogno is one of the quieter Palladian villas, standing in a park on the edge of the town of the same name, a few kilometres north of Vicenza. Andrea Palladio designed it in the mid-sixteenth century for the Caldogno family, and it shows his early style: a compact, symmetrical block with a triple-arched loggia in the centre, a pediment above, and no unnecessary decoration. Inside, the main hall and rooms are covered with frescoes by Giovanni Antonio Fasolo and Giovanni Battista Zelotti, depicting scenes of country life, banquets, games and love, painted with charm and humour. Like the other villas of the Veneto, it belongs to the UNESCO listing of the City of Vicenza and the Palladian Villas.
Read the complete Villa Caldogno write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 49 km into the recorded legs you reach Villa Caldogno. Next is Villa Piovene.
Palladio designed villas the way other architects write poetry, with proportion, rhythm and an ear for the landscape, and Villa Piovene at Lugo di Vicenza is one of his early ones. It stands on a slope at the foot of the Venetian pre-Alps, north of Vicenza, a stern box of pale stone fronted by a tall flight of steps and a temple-like portico of Ionic columns. The house was meant to be seen from below, rising out of the garden like a small temple, and the effect is of calm authority. Palladio is said to have designed it in the 1540s for the Piovene family, who were wealthy merchants and landowners.
Read the complete Villa Piovene write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Villa Piovene, about halfway. Next is Villa Valmarana Bressan.
Palladio had a way of making a house look like a temple, and his clients were happy to pay for it. Andrea Palladio, born in Padua in 1508 and trained in Vicenza as a stonemason, designed dozens of villas for the landowners of the Veneto, using the proportions of ancient Rome to give their country houses a sense of order and dignity. The Villa Valmarana, at Monticello Conte Otto, just north of Vicenza, dates from the middle of the sixteenth century and is one of the buildings that UNESCO lists with the city of Vicenza and the Palladian villas of the Veneto. It stands in a field, with a pedimented front and neat flanks, and the loggia is the sort of space that makes you want to sit down and read.
Read the complete Villa Valmarana Bressan write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Villa Valmarana Bressan sits at 82 km, about halfway. Next is back through Villa Piovene.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Villa Piovene write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Villa Piovene comes up about 111 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Villa Caldogno.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Villa Caldogno write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 131 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Villa Caldogno. Next is back through Villa Godi Malinverni.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Villa Godi Malinverni write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Villa Godi Malinverni, late in the day. Next is Villa Angarano.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Villa Angarano write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 178 km.
Villa Angarano → Villa Godi Malinverni is 29 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Villa Godi Malinverni → Villa Caldogno is 20 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Villa Caldogno → Villa Piovene is 20 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Villa Piovene → Villa Valmarana Bressan is 20 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Villa Valmarana Bressan → back through Villa Piovene is 22 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Villa Piovene → back through Villa Caldogno is 20 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Villa Caldogno → back through Villa Godi Malinverni is 20 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Villa Godi Malinverni → Villa Angarano is 28 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.