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.
A 250 km round trip from Alberobello - roughly 4 h 27 in the saddle. It goes by way of Tarentum, The Via Appia from Mesochorum to Scamnum, Brundisium and back through The Via Appia from Mesochorum to Scamnum. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
A museum in a trullo sounds like a joke, but the Museo Storico in this part of Apulia belongs to a landscape where almost everything is a stone cone, and it makes sense to treat it as the doorway to the countryside rather than a single building. The ride this point belongs to leads north-west to Castel del Monte, the strange octagonal castle that the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II raised on a hill in the thirteenth century, with eight towers and no moat, no drawbridge and no obvious military purpose.
Read the complete Museo Storico write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Museo Storico is where the day begins. Next is Tarentum.
Taranto is a city between two seas. The old town sits on a small island between the Mar Grande, an open bay of the Gulf of Taranto, and the Mar Piccolo, an inner lagoon, connected to the mainland by bridges, including a swing bridge that opens to let warships pass into the naval base. Founded by Spartan colonists in the eighth century BC as Taras, it became one of the richest and most powerful cities of Magna Graecia, the Greek world in southern Italy, before falling to Rome.
Read the complete Tarentum write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Tarentum comes up about 46 km into the recorded legs. Next is The Via Appia from Mesochorum to Scamnum.
The last stretch of the Via Appia ran across this flat, sun-drenched part of Puglia toward Brundisium, the port from which Romans sailed to Greece and the East. The road, begun in 312 BC from Rome, was the queen of roads, and the whole route became a UNESCO site in 2024. The section between the stations the Romans called Mesochorum and Scamnum passes near Oria and Francavilla Fontana, and while little of the original paving survives here, the line of the road still shapes the landscape, with modern roads, field boundaries and farm tracks following its course.
Read the complete The Via Appia from Mesochorum to Scamnum write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 88 km into the recorded legs you reach The Via Appia from Mesochorum to Scamnum. Next is Brundisium.
Brindisi is where the Appian Way ends, and the Romans knew it as Brundisium. The old road ran from Rome across southern Italy to this harbour, the gateway to Greece and the East, and a tall Roman column near the waterfront marks its final stretch; a second column stood beside it until it was taken to Lecce in the seventeenth century. The harbour itself is a long, sheltered inlet, a natural port that has served merchants, crusaders and armies for more than two thousand years.
Read the complete Brundisium write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Brundisium, about halfway. Next is back through The Via Appia from Mesochorum to Scamnum.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete The Via Appia from Mesochorum to Scamnum write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through The Via Appia from Mesochorum to Scamnum sits at 176 km, about halfway. Next is back through Tarentum.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Tarentum write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Tarentum comes up about 205 km into the recorded legs. Next is Museo Storico.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Museo Storico write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Museo Storico closes the day.
Museo Storico → Tarentum is 46 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Tarentum → The Via Appia from Mesochorum to Scamnum is 42 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
The Via Appia from Mesochorum to Scamnum → Brundisium is 37 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Brundisium → back through The Via Appia from Mesochorum to Scamnum is 38 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through The Via Appia from Mesochorum to Scamnum → back through Tarentum is 42 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Tarentum → Museo Storico is 46 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.