The best traffic-free bike rides in Monte Ortobene

Incredibly beautiful to bike here

Awesome place for biking

Super nice bike shop with good prices. We asked for new brake pads and the mechanic kindly replaced them on the spot.

Difficult to get there from the hiking path

Granitic hill located east of the city of Nuoro, at the top is the statue of the redeemer. It was also a historic finish in the Giro di Sardegna.

History According to legend, the Sanctuary was born thanks to an archaic wooden statue found by a shepherd in the 17th century, who miraculously healed the city from the plague. The ancient sacred building was built in 1670, thanks to the project by Nicola Ruiu Manca, then replaced by a church in 1946. Since 1957, the icon of the Madonna delle Grazie has been kept in the new Sanctuary, next to the church. The Sanctuary The new Sanctuary was designed in the 1950s by the architect Don Verri and is characterized by a high facade, in polished granite, decorated with mosaics representing the fifteen Mysteries of the Rosary. Of the ancient Sanctuary we can only notice the facade, consisting of an ornate portal and a trachyte rose window, derived from the older church of Nuoro. The Sanctuary, as a whole, is formed by a very simple architectural scheme: an elongated room, covered by a barrel vault, which ends in a square presbytery. Inside we can admire two superimposed altars where, in the upper altar, the Virgin of Grace is kept. The small wooden sculpture represents a young woman holding the Child to her breast with her left hand and who, in turn, holds the world in the palm of her hand. To appreciate the cycle of seventeenth-century frescoes that outline the figures of the twelve Apostles with other Saints. Noteworthy is the imposing bell tower, which was also part of the previous Sanctuary. Source: https://www.vaticano.com/turismo/scheda_19_santuario-di-nostra-signora-delle-grazie.html

The Cathedral of Santa Maria della Neve is the main Catholic church in Nuoro and the cathedral of the Diocese of Nuoro. Located in Piazza Santa Maria della Neve, it is dedicated to the Madonna della Neve, patron saint of Nuoro, whose cult is closely linked to the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome.

Mount Ortobene is a mountain, close to the town of Nuoro, in central Sardinia, Italy,. There are two main parks: "Sedda Ortai" and "Il Redentore". At the feet of the mountain is a nuraghe archaeological area including the "Domus de janas" tombs. On the mountain's top is the bronze "Statue of Christ the Redeemer" by Vincenzo Jerace (1901). Flora of the Ortobene include mostly holm oaks, while wildlife include Sardinian wild boar, weasel, marten, garden dormouse, Sardinian fox, European hare, Barbary partridge, great and lesser spotted woodpecker, Eurasian jay, blue rock-thrush, wood pigeon, Dartford warbler, goshawk, Eurasian sparrowhawk, common kestrel, peregrine falcon and golden eagle. Grazia Deledda, Nobel Prize in Literature in 1926, wrote about Mount Ortobene: "No, it's not true that the Ortobene can be compared to other mountains; there's only one Ortobene in the whole world: it's our heart, it's our soul, our character, everything big and small, kind and tough and rough and sorrowful in us." From Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ortobene)