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.
309 km from Mira Taglio to Mira Taglio, about 4 h 49 of riding. The stops in between: Scrovegni Chapel Church of the Eremitani, Villa Thiene, Palazzo de la Ragione Chapel of the Carare and Villa Saraceno. It suits an unhurried touring pace.
Locals call it La Malcontenta, the unhappy woman, and the stories about who she was are better than any of them can prove. The legend says a Foscari wife was banished here for her bad behaviour in Venice; the duller truth is that the name probably came from the area or a nearby canal long before the villa existed. Either way, the house Andrea Palladio built for the brothers Nicolò and Alvise Foscari around 1560 is one of his masterpieces, a temple-fronted block raised on a high base above the Brenta canal, looking out over the water like a Roman villa that had wandered down to the lagoon. It forms part of the UNESCO listing of the City of Vicenza and the Palladian Villas of the Veneto.
Read the complete Villa Foscari write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Villa Foscari is where the day begins. 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 comes up about 33 km into the recorded legs. Next is Villa Thiene.
Quinto Vicentino is a quiet farming town on the flat plain just north-east of Vicenza, and its town hall happens to be a villa by Andrea Palladio. Villa Thiene was commissioned in the sixteenth century by the brothers Marcantonio and Adriano Thiene, members of one of the most powerful families in Vicenza, and Palladio drew up a grand design for it with courtyards and wings that would have spread across the fields. Only part of that plan was ever built. What stands today is a solid, rather austere block, and the council offices are inside it, which gives the place a pleasingly everyday feeling.
Read the complete Villa Thiene write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 73 km into the recorded legs you reach Villa Thiene. Next is Palazzo de la Ragione Chapel of the Carare.
Padua's Palazzo della Ragione is the big hall that sits between the two market squares, Piazza delle Erbe and Piazza della Frutta, and it has done that job since the early thirteenth century, when the city was a self-governing commune and wanted a building big enough for its courts. The enormous upper hall, with a roof shaped like an upturned ship's keel, is said to be one of the largest medieval halls in Europe, its walls covered in astrological frescoes and a giant wooden horse standing at one end. Downstairs the arcades still house butchers, cheesemongers and cafes, which is the best sign that the building has remained a living part of town.
Read the complete Palazzo de la Ragione Chapel of the Carare write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Palazzo de la Ragione Chapel of the Carare, about halfway. Next is Villa Saraceno.
In the countryside south of the Berici Hills, near the village of Agugliaro, Villa Saraceno is one of the simplest and most elegant of Andrea Palladio's villas, built in the mid-sixteenth century for Biagio Saraceno, a Vicentine nobleman. It is a compact building with a classical portico of arches and a triangular pediment, set among farmland, and it is part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site of the City of Vicenza and the Palladian Villas of the Veneto.
Read the complete Villa Saraceno write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Villa Saraceno sits at 142 km, about halfway. Next is back through Palazzo de la Ragione Chapel of the Carare.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Palazzo de la Ragione Chapel of the Carare write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Palazzo de la Ragione Chapel of the Carare comes up about 199 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Villa Thiene.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Villa Thiene write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 238 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Villa Thiene. Next is back through Scrovegni Chapel Church of the Eremitani.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Scrovegni Chapel Church of the Eremitani write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Scrovegni Chapel Church of the Eremitani, late in the day. Next is Villa Foscari.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Villa Foscari write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 309 km.
Villa Foscari → Scrovegni Chapel Church of the Eremitani is 33 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Scrovegni Chapel Church of the Eremitani → Villa Thiene is 40 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Villa Thiene → Palazzo de la Ragione Chapel of the Carare is 41 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Palazzo de la Ragione Chapel of the Carare → Villa Saraceno is 52 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Villa Saraceno → back through Palazzo de la Ragione Chapel of the Carare is 33 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Palazzo de la Ragione Chapel of the Carare → back through Villa Thiene is 39 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Villa Thiene → back through Scrovegni Chapel Church of the Eremitani is 41 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Scrovegni Chapel Church of the Eremitani → Villa Foscari is 30 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.