Museo Storico and The Via Appia from Mesochorum to Scamnum

Waypoint introductions and full write-ups

1. 1. Museo Storico

   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.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Museo Storico is where the day begins. Next is Tarentum.

2. 2. 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.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Tarentum comes up about 46 km into the recorded legs. Next is The Via Appia from Mesochorum to Scamnum.

3. 3. 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.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   about 86 km into the recorded legs you reach The Via Appia from Mesochorum to Scamnum. Next is back through Tarentum.

4. 4. back through Tarentum

   Return visit. Read the place description above.

   Read the complete Tarentum write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   back through Tarentum, late in the day. Next is Museo Storico.

5. 5. Museo Storico

   Return visit. Read the place description above.

   Read the complete Museo Storico write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Back at Museo Storico. That is the ride.