CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
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 217 km round trip from Pompei - roughly 4 h 23 in the saddle. The stops in between: Historic Centre of Naples, 18th-Century Royal Palace at Caserta with, Beneventum and the Arch of Trajan and back through 18th-Century Royal Palace at Caserta with. The line favours views over speed.
This part of the ride is 33 km of Historic Centre of Naples → 18th-Century Royal Palace at Caserta with .
Pompeii is the most famous ruin in the world, and it deserves its fame in a way that is hard to explain until you have walked its streets. In AD 79 Vesuvius erupted for two days, burying the town under about four metres of pumice and ash, and what was left was a Roman provincial city caught mid-sentence, with graffiti on the walls, loaves in an oven and a dog chained in a doorway. The letters of Pliny the Younger describe the eruption from across the bay, and they are the first account of a volcanic event by an eyewitness. Excavations began in 1748, and about two-thirds of the town is now uncovered.
Read the complete Archaeological Areas of Pompei write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Archaeological Areas of Pompei is where the day begins. Next is Historic Centre of Naples.
Naples is not a city you ride through so much as one you survive and then fall in love with. The historic centre, a UNESCO site since 1995, sits on the street plan of Neapolis, the Greek new city founded around the sixth century BC, and the three ancient decumani still run straight through it, the most famous being Spaccanapoli, the street that splits Naples in two. Along them, churches, palaces, shrines, workshops and laundry-hung alleys are packed together with an intensity found nowhere else in Europe.
Read the complete Historic Centre of Naples write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Historic Centre of Naples comes up about 26 km into the recorded legs. Next is 18th-Century Royal Palace at Caserta with.
When Charles of Bourbon, king of Naples, decided to build a royal palace to rival Versailles, he did not do things by halves. The Reggia di Caserta, begun in 1752 to a design by Luigi Vanvitelli, is one of the largest royal palaces in the world, with some twelve hundred rooms, four inner courtyards, a theatre and a grand staircase that has appeared in films including Star Wars, where it stood in for the palace of Naboo. Behind it, a park stretches for three kilometres up the hillside, with fountains, statues and a long chain of pools and cascades fed by an aqueduct that Vanvitelli built specially, ending at a great waterfall at the top.
Read the complete 18th-Century Royal Palace at Caserta with write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 59 km into the recorded legs you reach 18th-Century Royal Palace at Caserta with. Next is Beneventum and the Arch of Trajan.
Benevento was a Samnite town called Maleventum when the Romans arrived, and they reportedly changed its name to Beneventum, good event instead of bad event, after defeating King Pyrrhus nearby in 275 BC. The city became an important stop on the Via Appia, and later the starting point of the Via Traiana, a shorter route to Brindisi built by the Emperor Trajan. In 114 AD, the city erected a triumphal arch in his honour where the new road began, and it is one of the best preserved Roman arches anywhere, covered with reliefs celebrating Trajan's achievements, from his conquests to his care for the poor. It stands today at the edge of the old town, its marble a soft cream colour, its carvings still sharp.
Read the complete Beneventum and the Arch of Trajan write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Beneventum and the Arch of Trajan, about halfway. Next is back through 18th-Century Royal Palace at Caserta with.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete 18th-Century Royal Palace at Caserta with write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through 18th-Century Royal Palace at Caserta with sits at 153 km, about halfway. Next is back through Historic Centre of Naples.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Historic Centre of Naples write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Historic Centre of Naples comes up about 193 km into the recorded legs. Next is Archaeological Areas of Pompei.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Archaeological Areas of Pompei write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Archaeological Areas of Pompei closes the day.
Archaeological Areas of Pompei → Historic Centre of Naples is 26 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Historic Centre of Naples → 18th-Century Royal Palace at Caserta with is 33 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
18th-Century Royal Palace at Caserta with → Beneventum and the Arch of Trajan is 51 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Beneventum and the Arch of Trajan → back through 18th-Century Royal Palace at Caserta with is 51 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through 18th-Century Royal Palace at Caserta with → back through Historic Centre of Naples is 32 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Historic Centre of Naples → Archaeological Areas of Pompei is 25 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.