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 147 km to Rome; allow about 2 h 54 of riding. On the way it passes The Via Appia across Alban Hills, Villa d'Este and back through The Via Appia across Alban Hills. 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 25 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 The Via Appia across Alban Hills.
The Romans built the Appian Way straight as a ruler across the Campagna, but when it reached the Alban Hills, the old volcanic massif south-east of Rome, even they had to bend a little. At Ariccia, the road crossed a deep valley on a huge viaduct of stone blocks, parts of which still survive, and climbed past Albano and Genzano toward Velletri and the south.
Read the complete The Via Appia across Alban Hills write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The Via Appia across Alban Hills comes up about 25 km into the recorded legs. 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.
about 72 km into the recorded legs you reach Villa d'Este. Next is back through The Via Appia across Alban Hills.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete The Via Appia across Alban Hills write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through The Via Appia across Alban Hills, 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.
Back at Historic Centre of Rome. That is the ride.
Historic Centre of Rome → The Via Appia across Alban Hills is 25 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
The Via Appia across Alban Hills → Villa d'Este is 47 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Villa d'Este → back through The Via Appia across Alban Hills is 48 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through The Via Appia across Alban Hills → Historic Centre of Rome is 27 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.