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 Rome it runs 332 km to Rome; allow about 6 h 37 of riding. It goes by way of Villa d'Este, Appia. Regina Viarum, back through Via Appia. Regina Viarum and back through Villa d'Este. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For about 33 km this is Mille Miglia Historic Route Core, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
You cannot ride into the heart of Rome with any dignity, but you can arrive in a way that does the city justice. Come in by the Appian Way, the Via Appia Antica, laid down in 312 BC by the censor Appius Claudius and later called the queen of roads, and the approach tells you who built this city and what they wanted from it. The old stone surface, with its basalt blocks, still runs for miles south of the walls, between pines, tombs and lonely arches of aqueduct. Closer to the centre the road joins the real city, with the Colosseum, the Forum and the imperial fora lined up like a geology of power, the Pantheon with its famous open oculus, and then Baroque Rome, with Bernini fountains in squares that seem to appear around every corner.
Read the complete Historic Centre of Rome write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Historic Centre of Rome is where the day begins. Next is Villa d'Este.
Cardinal Ippolito II d'Este, son of Lucrezia Borgia, had expected to become pope. When that did not happen, he was made governor of Tivoli and consoled himself by turning an old Benedictine convent on the hillside into a villa with a garden that would astonish Europe. Built in the sixteenth century, the Villa d'Este is a hillside of terraces, stairs and fountains, all fed by gravity from the river Aniene: the Hundred Fountains, a long wall of spouting masks and eagles, the Fountain of the Organ, which plays music driven by water, and the Oval Fountain, with its cascade falling into a pool. The villa and its gardens are a World Heritage Site.
Read the complete Villa d'Este write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Villa d'Este comes up about 33 km into the recorded legs. Next is Via Appia. Regina Viarum, 41 km on.
The Romans called it the queen of roads, and in 2024 UNESCO agreed, listing the Via Appia from Rome to Brindisi as a World Heritage site. Begun in 312 BC by the censor Appius Claudius Caecus, it was the first great Roman road, built to move armies south toward Campania and later extended to the port of Brindisi, the gateway to Greece and the East.
Read the complete Via Appia. Regina Viarum write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 92 km into the recorded legs you reach Via Appia. Regina Viarum. Next is Via Appia. Regina Viarum, 40 km on.
South of the Alban Hills, the Via Appia drops onto the Pontine plain and runs dead straight for mile after mile, as if the Roman engineers had laid it with a ruler, which in a sense they did. This was the Regina Viarum, the queen of roads, begun in 312 BC by the censor Appius Claudius Caecus to link Rome with Capua, and later extended to Brindisi. Here, near Sezze Scalo and Latina, the road crossed the Pontine Marshes, a malarial swamp that defeated would-be drainers from the Romans to the popes. Travellers sometimes took a canal boat alongside the road instead, and the poet Horace complained about the mosquitoes and the frogs keeping him awake on that very journey.
Read the complete Via Appia. Regina Viarum write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Via Appia. Regina Viarum, about halfway.
Terracina is the point where the Via Appia, the queen of roads, meets the sea after its long straight run from Rome across the Pontine plain. The Romans built the road in 312 BC under the censor Appius Claudius, and for its time it was a marvel: paved, drained and as straight as engineering allowed, linking Rome to Capua and later to Brindisi. The stretch through the Pontine marshes was notorious for mosquitoes and malaria, and travellers often took a canal boat alongside the road instead, as the poet Horace describes in one of his satires.
Read the complete Via Appia. Regina Viarum write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Via Appia. Regina Viarum sits at 163 km, about halfway. Next is back through Via Appia. Regina Viarum, 41 km on.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Via Appia. Regina Viarum write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Via Appia. Regina Viarum comes up about 203 km into the recorded legs.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Via Appia. Regina Viarum write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 240 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Via Appia. Regina Viarum. Next is back through Villa d'Este.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Villa d'Este write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Villa d'Este, late in the day. Next is Historic Centre of Rome.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Historic Centre of Rome write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 332 km.
Historic Centre of Rome → Villa d'Este is 33 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Villa d'Este → Via Appia. Regina Viarum is 59 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Via Appia. Regina Viarum → Via Appia. Regina Viarum is 38 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Via Appia. Regina Viarum → back through Via Appia. Regina Viarum is 37 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Via Appia. Regina Viarum → back through Via Appia. Regina Viarum is 37 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Via Appia. Regina Viarum → back through Villa d'Este is 58 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Villa d'Este → Historic Centre of Rome is 33 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.