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.
From Pompei it runs 330 km to Pompei; allow about 6 h 09 of riding. On the way it passes Marechiaro, Ancient Capua, The Via Appia from Sinuessa to the Pagus S and The Via Appia from 83rd mile to Formiae. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
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 Marechiaro.
There is a song about Marechiaro, and for once the song is not exaggerating. The little fishing hamlet on the Posillipo headland, at the western edge of the Bay of Naples, inspired a poem by Salvatore Di Giacomo in the 1880s about a window and a flower, and Francesco Paolo Tosti set it to music, so that "Marechiare" has been sung in Neapolitan kitchens and concert halls ever since. Locals will point out the so-called Fenestella, a small window on a wall above the sea, as the very one. Whether the poet had it in mind or not is a matter for a pleasant argument over a plate of fried fish.
Read the complete Marechiaro write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Marechiaro comes up about 36 km into the recorded legs. Next is Ancient Capua.
Santa Maria Capua Vetere does not look like much as you ride in, a busy Campanian town of tangled traffic and apartment blocks, but under and around it lies ancient Capua, once one of the richest cities in Italy. The Via Appia passed straight through, and its great amphitheatre, second in size only to the Colosseum, still dominates the edge of town. This was where the gladiator schools trained their fighters, and it was from a school in Capua that Spartacus broke out in 73 BC with a band of fellow slaves, beginning the revolt that shook Rome for two years. The amphitheatre and a small gladiator museum nearby are the obvious stops, and the Mithraeum under the town, with its painted scene of the god slaying a bull, is one of the best preserved in Italy.
Read the complete Ancient Capua write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 82 km into the recorded legs you reach Ancient Capua. Next is The Via Appia from Sinuessa to the Pagus S.
The Via Appia, the Queen of Roads, ran from Rome to Brindisi, and in 2024 UNESCO inscribed long stretches of it as a single World Heritage site. Near Mondragone, on the coast of northern Campania, the road passes the site of Sinuessa, a Roman colony that once guarded the route where it reached the sea after crossing the coastal plains from the north. Not a great deal stands above ground today, so this is a place where you read the landscape rather than tour the ruins.
Read the complete The Via Appia from Sinuessa to the Pagus S write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The Via Appia from Sinuessa to the Pagus S, about halfway. Next is The Via Appia from 83rd mile to Formiae.
The queen of roads, the Romans called it: the Via Appia, begun in 312 BC by the censor Appius Claudius Caecus, ran from Rome to Capua and later on to Brindisi, the gateway to Greece and the East. Near Formia, the old road comes down from the hills of Itri to the coast of the Gulf of Gaeta, and a stretch of it, with its paving stones and roadside monuments, survives in the countryside. In 2024, UNESCO listed the Via Appia as a whole, and this section between the eighty-third mile from Rome and the ancient town of Formiae is one of its pieces.
Read the complete The Via Appia from 83rd mile to Formiae write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The Via Appia from 83rd mile to Formiae sits at 158 km, about halfway. Next is back through The Via Appia from Sinuessa to the Pagus S.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete The Via Appia from Sinuessa to the Pagus S write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through The Via Appia from Sinuessa to the Pagus S comes up about 196 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Ancient Capua.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Ancient Capua write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 246 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Ancient Capua. Next is back through Marechiaro.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Marechiaro write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Marechiaro, late in the day. 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.
The route ends here after 330 km.
Archaeological Areas of Pompei → Marechiaro is 36 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Marechiaro → Ancient Capua is 46 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Ancient Capua → The Via Appia from Sinuessa to the Pagus S is 50 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
The Via Appia from Sinuessa to the Pagus S → The Via Appia from 83rd mile to Formiae is 32 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
The Via Appia from 83rd mile to Formiae → back through The Via Appia from Sinuessa to the Pagus S is 32 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through The Via Appia from Sinuessa to the Pagus S → back through Ancient Capua is 50 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Ancient Capua → back through Marechiaro is 50 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Marechiaro → Archaeological Areas of Pompei is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.