The Lessinia plateau doesn't announce itself. One moment you're climbing through beech forest, the next the trees fall away and the road disappears into grassland that rolls toward the horizon like a green sea. This 70-kilometer loop through the Parco Naturale Regionale della Lessinia, in the Veneto Prealps above Verona, climbs 1,800 meters through pasture, stone walls, and malghe that have grazed cattle since before the roads existed.
The route starts near Bar Al Gavinel and works its way up through the Bivio del Pidocchio toward Malga Lessinia, where the gravel turns wide and open and the Dolomites appear, faint, on the horizon. From there the track threads past Rifugio Podestaria and drops toward San Giorgio before climbing back through the Conca dei Parpari, one of the plateau's signature basins, and closing the loop near the Fontana di Busoni.
It's a ride that rewards patience more than power. The gradients are honest, the surface shifts constantly between road, gravel, and pasture track, and the payoff is a landscape that feels closer to the Balkans than to the Dolomites fifteen kilometers away.
Distance: 70 km · Elevation gain: +1,800 m · Terrain: gravel and pasture roads · Location: Lessinia, Veneto, Italy