Why this ride
116 km from Bari to Bari, about 2 h 10 of riding. The stops in between: Trullo Sovrano, Casa d'Amore, Piazza del Mercato and Museo Storico.
CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
Bari day out · Museo Storico
Plan this ride
- Recorded distance
- 116 km
- Riding-time estimate
- 2 h 10
- Journey
- Recorded itinerary
Distance and timing basis
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.
Waypoint introductions and full write-ups
1. Bari
Bari is a working port city on the Adriatic, and a lot more rewarding than most riders expect. With nearly three hundred thousand people it is the capital of Puglia, with all the traffic that implies: loud, quick, a little chaotic, and entirely good-natured once you accept the rhythm. Use it as a place to start, to eat, to arrive. The ride proper begins when you leave town and the olive groves open up.
Read the complete Bari write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Bari is where the day begins. Next is Trullo Sovrano.
2. Trullo Sovrano
Apulia is full of oddities, but nothing in it looks as unlikely as a trullo. These are round or square dry-stone houses topped with conical roofs of grey limestone slabs, laid without any mortar, and the town of Alberobello has well over a thousand of them. The Trullo Sovrano, the Sovereign Trullo, is the biggest and the grandest, a two-storey building on a hillside square at the edge of the old quarter, and it was built in the eighteenth century for a wealthy family. Inside, it houses a small museum of everyday life, rooms divided by curtains and arches, and a dome that rises overhead like an upturned bowl.
Read the complete Trullo Sovrano write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Trullo Sovrano comes up about 57 km into the recorded legs. Next is Casa d'Amore.
3. Casa d'Amore
Behind the souvenir shops of Alberobello lies a story about taxes and kings that locals like to tell, and the Casa d'Amore is a handy place to start telling it. The house is one of the older buildings in the Rione Monti, the hillside quarter of conical trullo roofs, and it dates to the closing years of the eighteenth century. It is known as the first of the trulli to be built with mortar, and its interior now serves as a small exhibition with traditional furnishings and, as in many such houses, a tiny shop selling local crafts and wine.
Read the complete Casa d'Amore write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
At least about 59 km into the recorded legs you reach Casa d'Amore. Next is Piazza del Mercato.
4. Piazza del Mercato
Every Puglian town has its square where the day's business happens, and in Alberobello the market has long been part of the modern town, the one that grew up on the flat ground below the trulli hillside. Travellers tend to rush straight to the Rione Monti and its sea of grey cones, then rush back out again, which is a pity, because the lower town gives the clearest sense of how people really live here. Old men sit on benches, women carry shopping bags from the stalls, and the bakeries open early for the focaccia and the taralli, the ring-shaped crackers that are a Pugliese staple.
Read the complete Piazza del Mercato write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Piazza del Mercato, about halfway. Next is Museo Storico.
5. Museo Storico
A museum in a trullo sounds like a joke, but the Museo Storico in this part of Apulia belongs to a landscape where almost everything is a stone cone, and it makes sense to treat it as the doorway to the countryside rather than a single building. The ride this point belongs to leads north-west to Castel del Monte, the strange octagonal castle that the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II raised on a hill in the thirteenth century, with eight towers and no moat, no drawbridge and no obvious military purpose.
Read the complete Museo Storico write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Museo Storico sits at 67 km, about halfway. Next is back through Piazza del Mercato.
6. back through Piazza del Mercato
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Piazza del Mercato write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
back through Piazza del Mercato comes up about 62 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Casa d'Amore.
7. back through Casa d'Amore
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Casa d'Amore write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
about 63 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Casa d'Amore. Next is back through Trullo Sovrano.
8. back through Trullo Sovrano
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Trullo Sovrano write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
back through Trullo Sovrano, late in the day. Next is Bari.
9. Bari
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Bari write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
The route ends here after 116 km.
Leg by leg
Bari to Trullo Sovrano
Bari → Trullo Sovrano is 57 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Trullo Sovrano to Bari
back through Trullo Sovrano → Bari is 56 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.