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 Brindisi it runs 380 km to Brindisi; allow about 6 h 48 of riding. It goes by way of The Appia Traiana along the Adriatic coast, The Via Appia from Mesochorum to Scamnum, Tarentum and The Sassi and the Park of the Rupestrian C. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Slow enough to look. The surface follows the shoreline, so the corners arrive where the water decided, not where an engineer did. Water arrives beside the road and stays for 35 km. The line follows the shore because there is nowhere else for it to go.
Brindisi is where the Appian Way ends, and the Romans knew it as Brundisium. The old road ran from Rome across southern Italy to this harbour, the gateway to Greece and the East, and a tall Roman column near the waterfront marks its final stretch; a second column stood beside it until it was taken to Lecce in the seventeenth century. The harbour itself is a long, sheltered inlet, a natural port that has served merchants, crusaders and armies for more than two thousand years.
Read the complete Brundisium write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Brundisium is where the day begins. Next is The Appia Traiana along the Adriatic coast.
Between Ostuni and Brindisi, along the Adriatic coast of Puglia, ran the Via Appia Traiana, a road built by the emperor Trajan in the early second century as a faster alternative to the old Appian Way, carrying traffic to the port of Brundisium, the gateway to Greece and the East. In 2024, stretches of both roads were inscribed by UNESCO as Via Appia, Regina Viarum. Here the old route followed the coastal plain through olive groves, and traces of it, together with ancient settlements, can be found near the sea.
Read the complete The Appia Traiana along the Adriatic coast write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The Appia Traiana along the Adriatic coast comes up about 27 km into the recorded legs. Next is The Via Appia from Mesochorum to Scamnum.
The last stretch of the Via Appia ran across this flat, sun-drenched part of Puglia toward Brundisium, the port from which Romans sailed to Greece and the East. The road, begun in 312 BC from Rome, was the queen of roads, and the whole route became a UNESCO site in 2024. The section between the stations the Romans called Mesochorum and Scamnum passes near Oria and Francavilla Fontana, and while little of the original paving survives here, the line of the road still shapes the landscape, with modern roads, field boundaries and farm tracks following its course.
Read the complete The Via Appia from Mesochorum to Scamnum write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 74 km into the recorded legs you reach The Via Appia from Mesochorum to Scamnum. Next is Tarentum.
Taranto is a city between two seas. The old town sits on a small island between the Mar Grande, an open bay of the Gulf of Taranto, and the Mar Piccolo, an inner lagoon, connected to the mainland by bridges, including a swing bridge that opens to let warships pass into the naval base. Founded by Spartan colonists in the eighth century BC as Taras, it became one of the richest and most powerful cities of Magna Graecia, the Greek world in southern Italy, before falling to Rome.
Read the complete Tarentum write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Tarentum, about halfway. Next is The Sassi and the Park of the Rupestrian C.
Matera is one of those places where the first view genuinely changes the mood of a day. You walk to the edge of the modern town, look down, and there are the Sassi: two hollows in the limestone filled with houses stacked on top of each other, their roofs serving as streets for the houses above, churches cut into the rock, staircases and alleys tumbling down to the edge of a deep ravine, the Gravina. Across the gorge, the Murgia plateau is riddled with caves and rock churches, some with Byzantine frescoes, used by monks and shepherds for over a thousand years. People have lived in these caves since prehistoric times, which makes Matera one of the oldest continuously inhabited settlements in the world.
Read the complete The Sassi and the Park of the Rupestrian C write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The Sassi and the Park of the Rupestrian C sits at 194 km, about halfway. Next is back through Tarentum.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Tarentum write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Tarentum comes up about 270 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through The Via Appia from Mesochorum to Scamnum.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete The Via Appia from Mesochorum to Scamnum write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 310 km into the recorded legs you reach back through The Via Appia from Mesochorum to Scamnum. Next is back through The Appia Traiana along the Adriatic coast.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete The Appia Traiana along the Adriatic coast write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through The Appia Traiana along the Adriatic coast, late in the day. Next is Brundisium.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Brundisium write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 380 km.
Brundisium → The Appia Traiana along the Adriatic coast is 27 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
The Appia Traiana along the Adriatic coast → The Via Appia from Mesochorum to Scamnum is 47 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
The Via Appia from Mesochorum to Scamnum → Tarentum is 42 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Tarentum → The Sassi and the Park of the Rupestrian C is 77 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
The Sassi and the Park of the Rupestrian C → back through Tarentum is 77 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Tarentum → back through The Via Appia from Mesochorum to Scamnum is 40 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through The Via Appia from Mesochorum to Scamnum → back through The Appia Traiana along the Adriatic coast is 40 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through The Appia Traiana along the Adriatic coast → Brundisium is 29 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.