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.
A 406 km round trip from Vico del Gargano - roughly 7 h 56 in the saddle. The stops in between: The Sanctuary of San Michele, The Appia Traiana at Canusium and the Ofan, Castel del Monte and The Via Appia in the upper Bradano Valley. A steady touring day rather than a sprint.
The Gargano is the spur of the Italian boot, a limestone mass pushing out into the Adriatic, and if you ask a rider to name Italy's best coast road, someone will name the one here. Vico, with seven thousand people, is a white town of narrow lanes on a ridge, surrounded by orange and lemon groves, with an old quarter that has a famous narrow alley, the Strada del Bacio. Peschici, three and a half thousand strong, clings to a cliff above the sea, with white houses and a castle.
Read the complete Pavari-Sfilzi write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Pavari-Sfilzi is where the day begins. Next is The Sanctuary of San Michele.
Few pilgrimage sites in Europe sit as dramatically as this one, high on the spur of the Gargano peninsula, the spur on Italy's boot. Monte Sant'Angelo is a white town draped along a ridge about eight hundred metres above the sea, and the sanctuary of San Michele is built into a natural cave below the main street. Tradition holds that the Archangel Michael appeared to the local bishop here at the end of the fifth century, and the cave has drawn pilgrims ever since: Lombards who made it their national shrine, Norman knights, crusaders on their way to the Holy Land, and the faithful of every age. You enter down a long flight of steps, eighty-six of them by the usual count, and the air cools as you descend. Inside, the rock itself is part of the church, damp and bare, with a statue of the archangel and centuries of carved and painted additions around it. It was inscribed as part of the Longobards in Italy World Heritage listing in 2011.
Read the complete The Sanctuary of San Michele write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The Sanctuary of San Michele comes up 42 km in. Next is The Appia Traiana at Canusium and the Ofan.
In AD 109, the emperor Trajan opened a new road from Benevento to Brindisi, shorter and easier than the old Via Appia, and it crossed the plain of northern Puglia, past the ancient city of Canusium, today's Canosa di Puglia. Near Canosa, the road crossed the Ofanto river on a bridge whose Roman foundations still support a later structure. The Appia Traiana at Canusium and the Ofanto crossing are part of the UNESCO listing of Via Appia, Regina Viarum, inscribed in 2024, and the plain around them is open, flat and fertile, a landscape of olive groves, vineyards and fields of wheat and artichokes.
Read the complete The Appia Traiana at Canusium and the Ofan write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
84 km in you reach The Appia Traiana at Canusium and the Ofan. Next is Castel del Monte.
You see it long before you reach it: a pale stone crown sitting alone on a hilltop above the Murge plateau, visible for miles across the olive groves and wheat fields of northern Puglia. Castel del Monte was built in the 1240s for Emperor Frederick II, the brilliant and restless Hohenstaufen ruler whom contemporaries called the wonder of the world. It is perfectly octagonal, with eight octagonal towers at the corners and an octagonal courtyard in the middle, and nobody really knows what it was for. It has no moat, no stables, no obvious defensive purpose, which has fed centuries of theories about astronomy, geometry and mysticism. UNESCO listed it in 1996, and Italians carry it in their pockets: it is on the back of the one-cent euro coin.
Read the complete Castel del Monte write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Castel del Monte, about halfway. Next is The Via Appia in the upper Bradano Valley.
The Via Appia, the queen of roads, ran from Rome to Brindisi, and in Basilicata it crossed the upland of the upper Bradano valley, a high, open country of wheat fields and rolling hills, near the towns of Venosa and Palazzo San Gervasio. In 2024 the Via Appia was listed as a World Heritage Site along its whole length, and here, in the empty farmland, the line of the road can be traced in field boundaries and tracks, with occasional fragments of paving and the ruins of way stations.
Read the complete The Via Appia in the upper Bradano Valley write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The Via Appia in the upper Bradano Valley sits at 168 km, about halfway. Next is back through Castel del Monte.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Castel del Monte write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Castel del Monte comes up 209 km in. Next is back through The Appia Traiana at Canusium and the Ofan.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete The Appia Traiana at Canusium and the Ofan write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
251 km in you reach back through The Appia Traiana at Canusium and the Ofan. Next is back through The Sanctuary of San Michele.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete The Sanctuary of San Michele write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through The Sanctuary of San Michele, late in the day. Next is Pavari-Sfilzi.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Pavari-Sfilzi write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 406 km.
Pavari-Sfilzi → The Sanctuary of San Michele is 21 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
The Sanctuary of San Michele → The Appia Traiana at Canusium and the Ofan is 65 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
The Appia Traiana at Canusium and the Ofan → Castel del Monte is 36 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Castel del Monte → The Via Appia in the upper Bradano Valley is 46 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
The Via Appia in the upper Bradano Valley → back through Castel del Monte is 46 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Castel del Monte → back through The Appia Traiana at Canusium and the Ofan is 36 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through The Appia Traiana at Canusium and the Ofan → back through The Sanctuary of San Michele is 65 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through The Sanctuary of San Michele → Pavari-Sfilzi is 21 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.