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 150 km round trip from Noventa Vicentina - roughly 2 h 51 in the saddle. On the way it passes Laghetto della Costa, Basilica and Monastery of St. Anthony Orat, Villa Chiericati and back through Basilica and Monastery of St. Anthony Orat.
Waypoint introductions and full write-ups
1. 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.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Villa Pojana is where the day begins. Next is Laghetto della Costa.
2. Laghetto della Costa
The Euganean Hills rise abruptly from the flat plain south-west of Padua, a cluster of volcanic cones covered in vineyards, chestnut woods and olive groves. Arquà Petrarca, a medieval village on the southern slopes, is where the poet Petrarch spent his last years and died in 1374; his house can still be visited. Close by, in a small hollow between the hills, lies the Laghetto della Costa, a tiny lake that hides a big secret.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Laghetto della Costa comes up about 24 km into the recorded legs. Next is Basilica and Monastery of St. Anthony Orat, 26 km on.
3. Basilica and Monastery of St. Anthony Orat
Padua, in the Veneto, has one of the great pilgrimage churches of Europe, and it is the grave of a Portuguese friar. Anthony of Padua was born in Lisbon, joined the Franciscans and became a famous preacher, and he died near Padua in 1231 at the age of thirty-six. He was made a saint within a year, one of the fastest canonisations in history, and construction of the great basilica began soon after. The Basilica of Saint Anthony, which the people of Padua simply call il Santo, is a church of many domes, partly Romanesque and partly Gothic with a hint of Byzantine, and it holds the saint's tomb in a side chapel, where pilgrims press their hands against the marble.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
about 45 km into the recorded legs you reach Basilica and Monastery of St. Anthony Orat. Next is Villa Chiericati.
4. 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.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Villa Pojana closes the day.
Leg by leg
Villa Pojana to Laghetto della Costa
Villa Pojana → Laghetto della Costa is 24 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Laghetto della Costa to Basilica and Monastery of St. Anthony Orat
Laghetto della Costa → Basilica and Monastery of St. Anthony Orat is 21 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Basilica and Monastery of St. Anthony Orat to Villa Chiericati
Basilica and Monastery of St. Anthony Orat → Villa Chiericati is 29 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Villa Chiericati to back through Basilica and Monastery of St. Anthony Orat
Villa Chiericati → back through Basilica and Monastery of St. Anthony Orat is 29 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Basilica and Monastery of St. Anthony Orat to back through Laghetto della Costa
back through Basilica and Monastery of St. Anthony Orat → back through Laghetto della Costa is 23 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Laghetto della Costa to Villa Pojana
back through Laghetto della Costa → Villa Pojana is 24 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.