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 302 km round trip from Lugo di Vicenza - roughly 5 h 42 in the saddle. On the way it passes Villa Chiericati, Villa Pojana, Tombola and Villa Saraceno. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 950 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. A steady touring day rather than a sprint.
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 is where the day begins. Next is Villa Chiericati.
Villa Chiericati stands in the flat countryside east of Vicenza, at Vancimuglio near Grumolo delle Abbadesse, a cube of pale plaster with a deep, columned portico that looks as if a Roman temple has been grafted onto a farmhouse. That is precisely what Palladio intended. Designed in the 1550s for Giovanni Chiericati, it is often cited as one of the first villas in which he gave the main façade a full temple front, an idea he would repeat, refine and make famous, and which architects copied for centuries afterwards, from English country houses to the American South. Like the other Palladian villas of the Veneto, it is part of the UNESCO site that includes the city of Vicenza.
Read the complete Villa Chiericati write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Villa Chiericati comes up about 43 km into the recorded legs. Next is Villa Pojana.
Andrea Palladio could make a farmhouse look like a temple, and at Villa Pojana he did it with remarkable restraint. Built in the mid-sixteenth century for Bonifacio Pojana, a nobleman with military ambitions, the villa stands in the village of Poiana Maggiore in the flat country south of Vicenza. Its facade is almost bare: a great arched entrance framed by a Serlian motif with round windows, a pediment above, smooth plaster walls. The interior has frescoes by artists of the time. Like other Palladian villas of the Veneto, it counts as one component of UNESCO's inscription of the city of Vicenza and the villas around it.
Read the complete Villa Pojana write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 77 km into the recorded legs you reach Villa Pojana. Next is Tombola.
In the flat, fertile plain south of Verona, near the town of Cerea, a low rise in the fields called Tombola hides the remains of a Bronze Age settlement. The site is listed among the prehistoric pile dwellings around the Alps, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and it belongs to a group of wetland villages that once stood among the marshes of the Valli Grandi Veronesi, a large area of wetland that was drained and reclaimed over the centuries.
Read the complete Tombola write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Tombola, 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 152 km, about halfway. Next is back through Tombola.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Tombola write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Tombola comes up about 191 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Villa Pojana.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Villa Pojana write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 224 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Villa Pojana. Next is back through Villa Chiericati.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Villa Chiericati write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Villa Chiericati, late in the day. Next is 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.
The route ends here after 302 km.
Villa Piovene → Villa Chiericati is 43 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Villa Chiericati → Villa Pojana is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Villa Pojana → Tombola is 32 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Tombola → Villa Saraceno is 40 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Villa Saraceno → back through Tombola is 42 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Tombola → back through Villa Pojana is 33 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Villa Pojana → back through Villa Chiericati is 35 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Villa Chiericati → Villa Piovene is 43 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.