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.
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 317 km round trip from Alberobello - roughly 5 h 46 in the saddle. It goes by way of Tarentum, The Via Appia from Mesochorum to Scamnum, The Appia Traiana along the Adriatic coast and Brundisium. A steady touring day rather than a sprint.
Slow enough to look. The surface follows the shoreline, so the corners arrive where the water decided, not where an engineer did. Water arrives beside the road and stays for 37 km. The line follows the shore because there is nowhere else for it to go.
Every Puglian town has its square where the day's business happens, and in Alberobello the market has long been part of the modern town, the one that grew up on the flat ground below the trulli hillside. Travellers tend to rush straight to the Rione Monti and its sea of grey cones, then rush back out again, which is a pity, because the lower town gives the clearest sense of how people really live here. Old men sit on benches, women carry shopping bags from the stalls, and the bakeries open early for the focaccia and the taralli, the ring-shaped crackers that are a Pugliese staple.
Read the complete Piazza del Mercato write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Piazza del Mercato 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 41 km in. 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.
81 km in you reach The Via Appia from Mesochorum to Scamnum. Next is The Appia Traiana along the Adriatic coast.
Between Ostuni and Brindisi, along the Adriatic coast of Puglia, ran the Via Appia Traiana, a road built by the emperor Trajan in the early second century as a faster alternative to the old Appian Way, carrying traffic to the port of Brundisium, the gateway to Greece and the East. In 2024, stretches of both roads were inscribed by UNESCO as Via Appia, Regina Viarum. Here the old route followed the coastal plain through olive groves, and traces of it, together with ancient settlements, can be found near the sea.
Read the complete The Appia Traiana along the Adriatic coast write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The Appia Traiana along the Adriatic coast, about halfway. 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 sits at 163 km, about halfway. Next is back through The Appia Traiana along the Adriatic coast.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete The Appia Traiana along the Adriatic coast write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through The Appia Traiana along the Adriatic coast comes up 203 km in. 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.
244 km in you reach back through The Via Appia from Mesochorum to Scamnum. 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, late in the day. Next is Piazza del Mercato.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Piazza del Mercato write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 317 km.
Piazza del Mercato → Tarentum is 47 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Tarentum → The Via Appia from Mesochorum to Scamnum is 44 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
The Via Appia from Mesochorum to Scamnum → The Appia Traiana along the Adriatic coast is 37 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
The Appia Traiana along the Adriatic coast → Brundisium is 35 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Brundisium → back through The Appia Traiana along the Adriatic coast is 35 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through The Appia Traiana along the Adriatic coast → back through The Via Appia from Mesochorum to Scamnum is 37 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 44 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Tarentum → Piazza del Mercato is 47 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.