CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
The recorded total and the leg detail need reconciliation. Inspect the leg notes before using this record for timing or navigation. 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.
From Palermo it runs 445 km to Palermo; allow about 7 h of riding. It goes by way of Cefalù Cathedral, Archaeological Area of Agrigento, back through Archaeological Area of Agrigento and back through Cefalù Cathedral. It suits an unhurried touring pace.
Speed drops and stays down. Park rather than crawl through. 79 km through ground somebody thought worth listing. The road passes it rather than bypassing it.
Leaving Palermo for Agrigento is a ride that begins in noise and ends in silence. The first few kilometres are the city at its most insistent, with scooters, fumes, a market spilling onto the road and a strong chance of being cut up by a delivery van. Persevere. Once you are through the western suburbs and onto the road south, the island begins to open out into the great rolling interior that most visitors never see: hills of wheat, scrubby ridges, hilltop villages, and long, empty views to ranges blue in the distance.
Read the complete Palermo write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Palermo is where the day begins. Next is Cefalù Cathedral.
Cefalù is where Sicily squeezes a medieval town between a rock and a beach. The Rocca, a limestone crag, rises a steep couple of hundred metres straight behind the old centre, and the cathedral sits at its foot, a heavy, golden-grey Norman building with two square towers that you can see from the coastal highway long before you reach the town. According to tradition King Roger II promised to build it after surviving a storm at sea, and work began in 1131. Whatever the truth of the vow, the church is a statement of power by a Norman king who ruled Sicily and wanted it to look Mediterranean, not merely northern.
Read the complete Cefalù Cathedral write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Cefalù Cathedral comes up 68 km in. Next is Archaeological Area of Agrigento.
The Valley of the Temples is not really a valley at all, but a long ridge running parallel to the Sicilian south coast, with the sea shining a few kilometres to the south and modern Agrigento climbing the hill behind. The Greeks called their city Akragas. It was founded around 580 BC by settlers from Gela and became one of the great cities of the Greek west, rich enough that the philosopher Empedocles, who lived here, is said to have remarked that the citizens built as if they would live forever and ate as if they would die tomorrow.
Read the complete Archaeological Area of Agrigento write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
At least 150 km in you reach Archaeological Area of Agrigento. Next is Archaeological Area of Agrigento.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Archaeological Area of Agrigento write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Archaeological Area of Agrigento, about halfway. Next is back through Archaeological Area of Agrigento.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Archaeological Area of Agrigento write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Archaeological Area of Agrigento sits at 271 km, about halfway. Next is back through Cefalù Cathedral.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Cefalù Cathedral write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Cefalù Cathedral comes up 338 km in. Next is Palermo.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Palermo write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Palermo closes the day.
Palermo → Cefalù Cathedral is 79 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Cefalù Cathedral → Archaeological Area of Agrigento is 124 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Archaeological Area of Agrigento → back through Cefalù Cathedral is 124 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Cefalù Cathedral → Palermo is 79 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.