CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
The recorded total and the leg detail need reconciliation. Inspect the leg notes before using this record for timing or navigation. 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.
461 km from Victoria to Victoria, about 9 h 56 of riding. The stops in between: Scicli, Necropolis of Pantalica and back through Scicli. It crosses from Malta into Italy - carry ID and check the toll rules. It suits an unhurried touring pace.
On the island of Gozo, the smaller sister of Malta, there stands a pair of temples that are older than the pyramids of Egypt and older than Stonehenge. The Ġgantija temples were built between about 3600 and 3200 BC, and the name comes from the Maltese word for giant, since islanders long believed that only a race of giants could have lifted such enormous stones. Local legend adds a giantess who carried the blocks on her head while nursing a baby, and who lived on a diet of broad beans. Some of the standing stones are over five metres tall, and the outer walls are made of massive pieces of coralline limestone, while the inner walls are finer-grained globigerina stone.
Read the complete Ġgantija Temples write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Ġgantija Temples is where the day begins. Next is Scicli.
In January 1693 an earthquake flattened much of south-eastern Sicily, and the towns that rose from the rubble were rebuilt in a confident, theatrical late baroque style. Scicli is one of the eight towns of the Val di Noto listed by UNESCO for that reason, and it may be the most charming. It sits at the meeting of three limestone gorges, with a rocky hill above crowned by the ruins of the old church of San Matteo, and a centre of honey-coloured churches and palaces whose balconies are held up by carved grotesque faces, horses, sirens and monsters.
Read the complete Scicli write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Scicli comes up 94 km in. Next is Necropolis of Pantalica.
Thousands of small square doorways riddle the limestone cliffs above the Anapo and Calcinara valleys, like the windows of a vast abandoned apartment block. These are rock-cut tombs, some five thousand of them, carved by the people who lived at Pantalica between roughly the thirteenth and seventh centuries before Christ. Together with Syracuse, the necropolis is a UNESCO World Heritage site, and it is one of the most evocative places in Sicily, in a gorge of the Hyblaean Mountains west of Syracuse, between the towns of Sortino and Ferla.
Read the complete Necropolis of Pantalica write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
189 km in you reach Necropolis of Pantalica. Next is back through Scicli.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Scicli write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Scicli, late in the day. Next is Ġgantija Temples.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Ġgantija Temples write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Ġgantija Temples. That is the ride.
Ġgantija Temples → Scicli is 123 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Scicli → Necropolis of Pantalica is 65 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Necropolis of Pantalica → back through Scicli is 65 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Scicli → Ġgantija Temples is 123 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.