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: planning record, not independently verified geometry.
Reading history stays on this device. My road watch requires a separate selection; opening it does not subscribe this ride.
Distances and riding times are planning figures. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
A 772 km round trip from Selçuk - roughly 13 h 18 in the saddle. On the way it passes Pythagoreion and Heraion of Samos, The Historic Centre and back through Pythagoreion and Heraion of Samos. It crosses from Türkiye into Greece - carry ID and check the toll rules. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Ephesus once had a population of a quarter of a million, a harbour that brought in ships from across the Mediterranean, and a temple counted among the Seven Wonders of the ancient world. Today it has the best-preserved street plan of any Roman city in the east, and a crowd of visitors who walk down its marble roads each morning. The most photographed building is the Library of Celsus, whose two-storey facade, with its columns and statues of the virtues, was built in the early second century as a tomb and a library for a Roman governor, and rebuilt from the fallen stones in the twentieth century. The Great Theatre, carved into the slope of Mount Pion, held about twenty-five thousand people and is where, according to the Acts of the Apostles, the silversmiths of Ephesus rioted against Paul for threatening the trade in souvenir shrines of Artemis.
Read the complete Ephesus write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Ephesus is where the day begins. Next is Pythagoreion and Heraion of Samos.
Two things that the ancient Greeks did better than anyone are on show on this corner of Samos, and one of them is a tunnel. In the sixth century BC, the tyrant Polycrates ruled the island, and he commissioned an engineer from Megara, Eupalinos, to bring water to his capital through a mountain. The tunnel is about a kilometre long, and Eupalinos had his workers dig from both ends at once, meeting in the middle with an error of only a few metres, which is a stunning achievement for the time. Visitors can walk through a part of it today, in a hard hat, and the sloping channel for water still runs beside the walkway.
Read the complete Pythagoreion and Heraion of Samos write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Pythagoreion and Heraion of Samos comes up about 173 km into the recorded legs. Next is The Historic Centre.
Patmos is a small island, only about thirteen kilometres long, in the Dodecanese, and it is famous for one reason. Tradition holds that the apostle John was exiled here by the Roman authorities in the first century and received the visions recorded in the Book of Revelation in a cave on the slope below the town. The Cave of the Apocalypse, with its rock cleft where the voice of God was said to speak, is still a place of pilgrimage. Above it, the fortress-like Monastery of Saint John the Theologian was founded in 1088 by the monk Christodoulos, with a charter from the Byzantine emperor, and it rises over the white houses of Chora like a castle.
Read the complete The Historic Centre write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 386 km into the recorded legs you reach The Historic Centre. Next is back through Pythagoreion and Heraion of Samos.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Pythagoreion and Heraion of Samos write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Pythagoreion and Heraion of Samos, late in the day. Next is Ephesus.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Ephesus write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Ephesus. That is the ride.
Ephesus → Pythagoreion and Heraion of Samos is 173 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Pythagoreion and Heraion of Samos → The Historic Centre is 213 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
The Historic Centre → back through Pythagoreion and Heraion of Samos is 213 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Pythagoreion and Heraion of Samos → Ephesus is 173 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.