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.
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Distance and riding time are measured on the routed road. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
From Victoria it runs 461 km to Victoria; allow 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.
Before there were pyramids in Egypt, or Stonehenge on its plain, people on a small Mediterranean island were building enormous stone temples, and some of them are still standing. The group at Ġgantija, on the island of Gozo, goes back to roughly 3600 BC, which makes it among the oldest free-standing monuments in the world. The walls are made of huge limestone blocks, some weighing several tonnes, and they curve into rounded chambers like the lobes of a clover leaf. Local legend said they were built by a giantess, and the name comes from the word for giant.
Read the complete Megalithic Temples of Malta write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Megalithic Temples of Malta 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 Megalithic Temples of Malta.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Megalithic Temples of Malta write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Megalithic Temples of Malta. That is the ride.
Megalithic Temples of Malta → 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 → Megalithic Temples of Malta is 123 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.