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 342 km round trip from Maiori - roughly 6 h 12 in the saddle. It goes by way of Herculaneum, 18th-Century Royal Palace at Caserta with, The Via Appia from Sinuessa to the Pagus S and The Via Appia from 83rd mile to Formiae. The line favours views over speed.
For about 54 km this is Amalfi Coast Road, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it — expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast.
36 km on Herculaneum → 18th-Century Royal Palace at Caserta with .
The Amalfi coast road is the reason many riders first dreamed of Italy, and it lives up to the legend and then some, with a few catches. The SS163 Amalfitana, carved into the cliffs above the sea in the nineteenth century, winds along the southern side of the Sorrento peninsula from Positano to Vietri sul Mare, with hundreds of bends, sheer drops, tunnels, bridges and villages clinging to the rocks. Amalfi itself, a small town of about five thousand people at the mouth of a ravine, was once a powerful maritime republic that rivalled Venice and Genoa in the Middle Ages, and its cathedral, with its striped facade and Arab-Norman cloister, is a reminder of that glory.
Read the complete Costiera Amalfitana write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Costiera Amalfitana is where the day begins. Next is Herculaneum.
On the morning of 24 August in AD 79, as the story is usually told, Vesuvius blew its top, and Herculaneum, a small seaside town on the Bay of Naples, was buried under around twenty metres of volcanic material. Pompeii gets the headlines because it was buried in ash and pumice, but Herculaneum was overwhelmed by superheated surges of gas and ash, and that violence did something kinder to the evidence: it carbonised wood. Roof beams, doors, beds, shop shutters and even food were preserved in a way that Pompeii cannot match, and the town feels smaller, closer and more intact.
Read the complete Herculaneum write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Herculaneum comes up about 54 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 90 km into the recorded legs you reach 18th-Century Royal Palace at Caserta with. 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 168 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 204 km into the recorded legs. 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.
about 254 km into the recorded legs you reach back through 18th-Century Royal Palace at Caserta with. Next is back through Herculaneum.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Herculaneum write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Herculaneum, late in the day. Next is Costiera Amalfitana.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Costiera Amalfitana write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 342 km.
Costiera Amalfitana → Herculaneum is 54 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Herculaneum → 18th-Century Royal Palace at Caserta with is 36 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
18th-Century Royal Palace at Caserta with → 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 18th-Century Royal Palace at Caserta with is 50 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 Herculaneum is 36 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Herculaneum → Costiera Amalfitana is 53 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.